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■ >»iii»i»i 1 1 111 III! 1 1 ti'ii'iiiiii I [ rfirr — rirfr 





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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



Shelf ...Oil. 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 







"1^ 






INDIA AND ITS MILLIONS 



BY 

1/ 



REV. DENNIS OSBORNE, 

I 

MUSSOORIE, INDIA. 



>. OY 



WITH PORTRAIT AND PHOTO- ENGRAVfNGS. 




PHILADELPHIA, 

GRANT & FAIRES, 

1884. 



Kntered, accordina; to Act of Congress, in the year 1884, by 

GRANT & FAIBES, 

ia the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, B. C. 






To GEORGE H. STUART, Esq., 

PHILADELPHIA. 

Honored and Beloved Brother : — 

I cannot deny myself the pleasure of offering to you this little 
volume of Lectures on India. Your long connection with, and profound 
interest in the progress of the gospel in heathen lands, makes such a dedication 
manifestly appropriate, while my deep obligations to you during my visit to this 
country, and the closeness and tenderness of our relations which your generous 
sympathy and active help have inspired and encouraged, make this a peculiarly 
personal and precious privilege. 

That God may long preserve a life which has been of so much value to the 
cause of truth, and enrich it with His choicest favors, shall ever be the prayer 
of your much attached and deeply obliged fellow- worker in the Gospel, 

DENNIS OSBORNE. 



Philadelphia, September 5, 1884. 



PREFATORY NOTE 



BY 



Bishop William Taylor, 



OF THE 



METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH, 



-^•»- 



My friend, Dennis Osborne, was the min- 
isterial delegate who represented the South 
India Conference' in the General Conference 
recently held in Philadelphia. Born in the 
City of Benares, the most holy place of the 
Brahmans, his person is sacred in the sight of 
the Hindus. The purity of his heart, the 
brilliancy of his intellect, the symmetry of his 
character, the success of his ministry, the elo- 
quence of his utterances, mark him as a mar- 
velous man. The Presbyterian missionaries of 



yj PRhFATORY NOTE. 

India wrote such glowing accounts of his won- 
derful power as a lecturer to Mr. George H. 
Stuart, and to the leading Presbyterian ministers 
of Philadelphia, that, had they not personally 
known the men who wrote, they would not have 
dared to publish them. They did publish them, 
and now those ministers and the hearers who 
throu'^ed their churches to hear the distin- 
o-ulshed stranger, toorether wdth the professors 
and students of Princeton (whither he went by 
special Invltadon), declare, with unanimity, that 
the lectures greatly exceed the fame of the 
lecturer. At the request of many persons, 
those lectures, beaming wdth real life and poetic 
common sense, have been put into book form 
that they might be preserved, and placed within 
reach of all w^ho read. 

WiLLTA^i Taylor. 



I 



CONTENTS. 



I. 

PAGE. 



Headlands of Indian History i 



ir. 



Vedism ; OR, Speculative Hinduism 30 



III. 



Ganga Mai ; or, Practical Hinduism 75 

IV. 

Dal Bhat ; or, the Hindu at Home 128 

V. 

Mission Mosaics • • 177 



Vll 



I. 

HEADLANDS 



OF 



Indian History. 



India : — Think of a continent, embracing an area of 
one million four hundred and seventy-four thousand six 
hundred and six square miles, as large as all of Europe 
together, Russia excluded ; in shape, a triangle, with its 
base buried under the snows of the Himalayas, the apex 
within a few degrees of the equator, the two sides washed 
by the Bay of Bengal and the Indian Ocean. The area 
of British India alone — that is, subject to the crown of 
England-^is twelve times that of Great Britain and 
Ireland, seven times that of France. The position of this 
great continent is commanding and suggestive of peculiar 
strength, and it is safe to affirm that it has been the 
theatre of the most eventful history in the oldest and 
most extensive quarter of the globe. 

Its physical features are striking and beautiful. Upon 
the north there towers up the lofty mountain wall, known 
as the Himalayan range. For fifteen hundred miles it 



2 HEADLANDS OF INDIAN HISTORY. 

rears its barrier, with immovable granite for a foundation, 
and glistening snow for a capstone. More than a score 
of peaks cleave the sky, each loftier than Mount Blanc, 
the Alpine giant. The highest summits look down upon 
you from a perpendicular height of five miles. At the 
feet of this unparalleled mountain range, fertile valleys 
smile, jungles rustle with fierce and untamed denizens, 
while sparkling streams break from lofty glaciers, and 
rushing, roaring and reverberating, carry beauty and 
fertility to the plains below. First, the grand plateau of 
Hindustan proper, a mosaic of variegated beauty, elec- 
tric with historic associations ; then lower down, the 
Southland known as the Deccan, girdled with hills slop- 
ing down in steps {ghauts) to the sea. 

The population of India, even for a country so vast, 
is immense. Two hundred and sixty-three millions, 
increasing at the rate of a half per cent, per annum. Of 
this population more than two hundred and sixty-one 
millions are non-Christians, thus : 

Hindus . 201,907,602 

Mahomedans 50,121,585 

Other religions 9,108,179 

261,137,366 

In natural resources and wealth of product, India has 
nothing to fear from comparison with the most favored 
tracts. Max Muller says : " If I were to look over the 
whole earth to find out the country most richly endowed 



HEADLANDS OF INDIAN HISTORY. 3 

with all the wealth, power and beauty that nature can 
bestow, in some parts a very paradise on earth, I should 
point to India." This eulogium is not extravagant. In 
respect of her botanical treasures, her zoological products, 
her harvests of field and garden and orchard, her wealth 
of flower and foliage, she is more completely the epitome 
of the world than any other country. The soil of India, 
though roughly and ungratefully treated, responds to the 
ploughshare's call with singular generosity. The treas- 
ures of her forests, her mines and her mountains, have 
enriched nations. The overflow of her wealth has raised 
bankrupt kingdoms to affluence, and hungry potentates 
have eaten of the crumbs from her table, and become fat. 
Her own governors and princes snatched one-half if not 
two-thirds of her produce as their own ; the present 
government demands one-third, yet the generous mother 
supports her numerous offspring upon the ample residue 
of her produce. 

Is this great country the abode of untutored savages ? 
On the contrary, when the great western nations were 
sitting in darkness and barbarism, India was leading the 
van in civilization, culture and material prosperity. In 
mathematics, science and philosophy, her sages first 
mapped out the path of progress. Their torches first 
broke the darkness. It is true that many of their deduc- 
tions were crude and erroneous, but they prove neverthe- 
less that an inquiring mind was fluttering in the breast of 



4 HEADLANDS OF INDIAN HISTORY. 

India, knocking at the door of knowledge, while all the 
world around lay utterly benumbed and dormant. In 
metaphysical subtlety, in mental casuistic science, indeed, 
she had advanced even then so far, that the fleetest of 
her pursuers in a race of ages, with the seven-leagued 
boots of nineteenth century progress, have not overtaken 
her. Much of the glittering idealism of the present day, 
is only the time-worn speculation of the ancient Hindu 
philosopher. Disgusted and dissatisfied, the old Indo 
Aryan sage threw the nauseating compound out of 
doors ; the modern Anglo Aryan picks it up, dusts away 
the cobwebs, puts a glittering label on it, and brings it 
forth, triumphantly, as a brand-new philosophy of his 
own special manufacture. 

Such is the country, and such the people, whose life 
and character we are called upon to explore. Like the 
configuration of the continent itself, an uncertain sea 
rolls along the main sides of her history, a sea of myth 
and legend, with waves of opaline hue which dazzle, yet 
fail to illumine. Looking out upon this "waste of 
waters," we fix our eyes upon some sturdy headlands 
which rise from its surface, and following their rough 
outlines, strive to map the form of the immense yet 
invisible coast line. 

What is that distant and shadowy crag standing out 
in dim outline against the sky, at whose feet the waves 
of thirty-three centuries break ? It is the first tradition 



HEADLANDS OF INDIAN HISTORY. 5 

of Hindu history preserved in the great epic poem 
known as the Maha Bharata, whose scenes date about 
B. C. 1500. The Hindus have no prose history. They 
have names which can be compared with Homer, Euri- 
pides and Virgil, but none that can be compared with 
Herodotus, Thucydides, or Tacitus. Ask a Hindu for 
a history of his country, and he puts into your 
hands epic and mythological poems like the Maha 
Bharata, Ramayana and Puranas, infinitely more ex- 
travagant and less credible than the ALiicid and Paradise 
Lost. 

The oldest of these records, the Maha Bharata, is 
embellished with the warmest coloring of oriental imag- 
ination, and it is impossible to separate fact from fable, 
legend from history. It is useful, however, as giving the 
earliest account of the administration and institutions of 
those early times. The Rajputs (literally sons of Rajas, 
or kings) were the soldier tribe of ancient India, and 
represented kingly authority and conquering power. The 
truest type of the powerful Aryan (noble) stock, they 
soon established a dominant sway over the aborginal or 
pre-Aryan races, and established kingdoms with feudal 
institutions like that of Europe in the Middle Ages. The 
Raja was ruler or sovereign of his own kingdom ; he 
was supported by hereditary crown lands, and protected 
by a military following of greater or less strength. His 
nobles were chiefs of principalities with their own retain- 



6 HEADLANDS OF INDIAN HISTORY. 

ers and dependents, who, in time of need, were at the 
command of the Raja. There were constant feuds 
between the Rajas of neighbouring kingdoms, and the 
sceptre of temporary supremacy passed from hand to 
hand according to the strength of the grip which swayed 
it. This supreme power was, for the time being, the 
Suzerain or Sovereign to whom the lesser dignities paid 
homage and allegiance. While these dignities strove, 
sword in hand, for the mastery, evolving ephemeral 
kingdoms and conquests, the grinding task of cultivating 
the soil devolved upon the rough peasantiy, who were 
defrauded of their rights by oppressive exactions, if not 
by positive plunder. 

The great poem already named, begins with the 
exploits of Bharata, a mythical hero, who is said to have 
conquered all India. Of course, he had a romantic 
history. His mother was the heroine Sakantala, the 
wife of Raja Rashyanta, who cruelly deserted his spouse 
before Bharata was born. The queen brought up her 
son in the jungle, where he was seen by his father years 
afterwards, playing with lions. The old Raja, recognizing 
his son, received his spouse into his favor, and thus 
Bharata became the prince royal of the kingdom, and on 
his father's death, assumed the sceptre which he swept 
on every side with a mighty hand. 

Another epic poem, called the Ramayana, furnishes a 
later glimpse of Hindu rule and society, and mainly 



HEADLANDS OF INDIAN HISTORY. 7 

strengthens the dim outlines of the previous record.* 
One change is manifest, and that is full of significance. 
In the oldest poem, there is recognition of the four dis- 
tinctive castes of Kshatriyas (soldiers), Brahmans (priests), 
Vaisyas (merchants), and Sudras (common people), and 
these relative grades appear as here given, the brahmans 
being represented as inferior to the soldier caste. In the 
latter poem, the priestly caste is designedly represented as 
supreme, and thus sacerdotal craft, casting aside disguise, 
boldly assumes the sceptre of universal supremacy, under 
whose iron sway the religious and political life of India 
has writhed in torture for more than three thousand years. 
These early rocks are black with the corrosion of 
religious putridity. Idolatry, with its attendant cruelties 
and superstitions, caste bigotries and a domineering 
sacerdotalism, with blacker shades as the headlands come 
nearer to us, darken these ancient records and shew both 
the antiquity and the intensity of the evil. The next 
rock, nearer and more distinct, yet still wrapt in shadows, 
represents the great reaction against Brahmanism, led by 
Buddha Goutama, about 500 B. C. The religious 
aspect and influence of this reformation will be dwelt 
on in its proper place.f It is sufficient here to say 

* These poems bear to the Hindu more interest religiously than they do 
politically or historically. A synopsis of their contents, as related to 
systematic Hinduism, will be found in its proper place. 

f Lecture 11, 



8 HEADLANDS OF INDIAN HISTORY. 

that its political influence was deep and far-reaching. 
Buddhism artfully pushed its wedges into the yawning 
crevices of the old system, which crumbled on every 
side ; crowns and kingdoms bowed to its politico-relig- 
ious power, until, under King Asoka, 250 B. C, a consol- 
idated empire with a religious substratum, rears its bold 
headland-front above the uncertain waves. 

Of this period, however, we have no certain and con- 
tinuous history. Great names we have, names of 
renowned conquerors and great kings, but all is hope- 
lessly intertwined with legendary extravagance, defying 
all historical analysis. 

A long period of national existence is thus passed over 
unmarked and uncharted. Kingdoms were consolidated 
and broken up ; independent but petty chieftenships 
coalesced into mighty sovereignty under vigorous hands, 
and again melted away under improvident or impotent 
successors ; a high order of civilization reached its climax, 
and then flowed backward upon itself; the wheel of 
progress obeyed the mighty impulse, and carried the 
people on to the gates of national prosperity, when, struck 
by the narrow bigotry of a selfish priesthood, they 
rolled backward, carrying the people down to the lowest 
water-mark of moral and intellectual life. 

Thus weakened and divided, the Hindus tempted 
foreign invasion. Custodians of the accumulations of 
centuries, the key of the vast treasure-house trembled 



HEADLANDS OF INDIAN HISTORY. 9 

in palsied hands. In the eleventh century of our era, 
the Mahomedan invader, Mahmud of Ghazni, darted 
down from the rugged mountains of Afghanistan upon 
the paralyzed nation and wrested the key from the feeble 
grip of the Hindu. In twenty-five years he overran the 
wealthy plains of India no less than twelve times, at each 
expedition carrying away treasures and slaves, until his 
own capital in Ghazni sparkled with plundered gold and 
gems, and Hindu slaves could not find purchasers in his 
markets at a dollar apiece ! Mahmud forced the famous 
temple of Somnath, in Western India, after a sanguinary 
resistance, with hope of finding rare treasures. Entering 
the temple, he beheld a huge wooden pillar for an idol, 
which the priests were anxious to ransom, but found no 
spoils. Disappointed and incensed, Mahmud struck the 
pillar violently with his mace, when, breaking to pieces, 
out fell a great heap of rubies and diamonds which had 
been secreted there. In 1157, the Mahomedan conquer- 
ors subjugated the Hindu states of Ajmer, Behar, Bengal 
and Oudh. Incessant warfare followed. Storm after 
storm of encroachment, invasion and conquest succeeded, 
with all their dire entailments of distress, degradation 
and disaster. All Nothern India lay at the feet of the 
conquerors ; in the Deccan or South alone, a hardy clan, 
the Mahrattas, struggled desperately for independence, 
not without success. 

It was in this political condition that the British rule 
I* 



10 HEADLANDS OF INDIAN HISTORY. 

began in India. It grew out of a trading company. The 
first English company for trading with East India was 
formed in 1599, during the reign of Queen EHzabeth in 
England, and the Great Mogal, Akbar, in India. The 
charter was issued in 1600. The first English factory 
was established at Surat, on the western sea board. 
Bombay, the great trade gate of India, then an insignifi- 
cant town, was shortly added. In Bengal, a small factory 
at Hooghly was opened later on, and thereafter removed 
to Calcutta, then but' a cluster of squahd villages. The 
first soil actually possessed by the British in India was 
the present site of Madras ; it was acquired by purchase, 
and measured six miles long and one broad. Thus 
trading was begun and vigorously carried on at each of 
the several important sea-ports of India. Small forces 
of European troops were maintained at each of these 
factories for purposes of self-defence. Governmental and 
administrative functions were exercised within the limits 
of the British possessions. The first and only design of 
the foreign settlers up to this was money-making ; but 
a train of unforeseen events swept them onward, and 
resulted in the consolidation of an empire. 

It was in Madras that the English were first Involved 
in war. The French, who were in the country before 
them, jealous of their rising prosperity, determined to 
drive them out. A long battle for existence followed. 
The daring and resourcefulness of Clive, then but a 



HEADLANDS OF INDIAN HISTORY. II 

young captain, but destined hereafter to be the founder 
of the British Empire in India, frustrated the enemy, and 
dispelled for ever their dream of a French Empire in the 
East. 

Difficulties, however, soon arose in the North. The 
Nabob of Bengal, enraged by the most moderate and 
rational resistance by the English of his despotic 
demands, marched upon Calcutta in 1756, with fifty 
thousand troops. The post surrendered after a siege of 
four days. The governor and military commander with 
the women and children retreated to the shipping. The 
remainder of the European residents, one hundred and 
forty-six in all, were thrust into a guard-room, eighteen 
feet square, and all but twenty-three smothered to death. 
This is remembered as the tragedy of the " black hole 
of Calcutta." 

Clive was sent from Madras to avenge the catastrophe. 
On 2d January, 1757, he retook Calcutta, and on 23d 
June, fought the decisive battle of Plassey. The Nabob 
marshalled a force of thirty-five thousand foot, fifteen 
thousand horse and fifty guns. The English had but 
three thousand men and eight guns. No wonder even 
Clive hesitated. Failure meant destruction, extinction. 
In the council of war, Clive himself voted against fight- 
ing. This was the first and the last council of war he 
ever held. In the night, while musing in a mango grove, 
he resolved to strike. Next morning, he set his little 



12 HEADLANDS OF INDIAN HISTORY. 

force boldly in motion, and bore down impetuously upon 
his unwieldy foe. A short but sanguinary struggle 
ensued, and the field was won. The opposing general 
was killed, the Nabob fled on his swiftest dromedary, 
and the smoke of the battle field broke upon a dawning 
empire. This great victory virtually made the English 
masters of India. 

A hundred years of eventful history follow. On the 
part of the English, enlarged conquests and broad acces- 
sions of territory, often necessary and lawful, but some- 
times culpable if not positively criminal. The consolida- 
tion of a few trading factories into a vast and powerful 
empire ; the establishment of administrative institutions 
commensurate with the vast territory and its manifold 
exigencies ; the equipment of a large and well-disciplined 
army, with a strong preponderation of native soldiery ; 
the diffusion of knowledge and the extension of the 
various appliances of civilized life, are the chief features 
of that century of British domination and power under 
the auspices of the Hon. East India Company. But that 
century was a period of probation and opportunity for 
higher ends. Christian in name and by profession, — was 
there no object loftier than mere gain and material culture 
in the providential giving over of this great Eastern nation 
to England? Assuredly there was, and this could be 
nothing else or less than that the nation so long 
enthralled in heathen bondage should be released from 



HEADLANDS OF INDIAN HISTORY. 1 3 

captivity by the missionary zeal and fidelity of its pro- 
fessedly Christian governors. 

Was this purpose fulfilled ? The shameful complicities 
with heathen rites and idolatrous ceremonies, the frequent 
sacrifice of principle at the shrine of mercenary policy, 
the positive hindrances to missionary effort, compelling 
the first pioneers of the mission field to seek the protec- 
tion of foreign flags, and retarding the labors of their 
successors after they had made good their footing, furnish 
the sad and significant answer. A hundred years of 
probation, and of unfaithfulness ; of opportunity misused 
and advantage abused ! What wonder that the whelming 
tempest was loosed, and a hurricane of fire swept over 
the unfaithful administration ? * 

To the devout student of history, the finger of flame 
which, in 1857, moved across the dark firmament of 
Indian history, wrote in no uncertain characters the doom 
of retributive dissolution, Tekel, '' weighed in the bal- 

*The Rt. Rev. D. Wilson, Bishop of Calcutta and Metropolitan of 
India, in a sermon preached in 1857, upon the gi-eat Rebellion, points out 
the delinquency of the ruling power in such forcible language, as follows : 

" India would seem to have been ruled too much in former times on the 
theory that God is not the Governor of the world, but that Satan is the 
power whom it is wiser and safer to fear. I fear we have too much con- 
tinued in the spirit, if not in the acts of our fathers. Even in our own 
times, I remember well the struggle of twenty long years under the great 
and eminent Wilberforce, that was necessary to secure a free admission of 
our Missionaries into India. I remember the cruel treatment of Dr. and 



14 HEADLANDS OF INDIAN HISTORY. 

ance and found wanting!" The conflagration was sudden 
and signal. Exactly a hundred years from Plassey, the 
nation arose to cast off the yoke of foreign rule. The 
reasons for this general movement are disputed. It is 
clear, however, that a long remembrance of wrongs and 
injuries^ fomented by interested partisans, native and 
foreign, was at the bottom of this widespread and dis- 
astrous rebellion. This spirit seized the opportunity 
which a pampered and disaffected native army afforded, 
and employed the inflanimable match of religious fanatic- 
ism to strike the flame. Rumors that the government 
were determined to destroy the caste of the native 
soldiery were studiously propagated, and soon the secret 
fanaticism of the whole race was fired. 

That a secret combination of great strength was 
maturing to overthrow the British rule by a simultaneous 
uprising throughout the empire, now appears all but 
certain. If such a concerted attempt had been made, it 

Mrs. Judson, whom I knew at Moulmein ; the forced resort of Dr. Carey 
and his pious companions to the Danish settlement of Serampore ; the 
prohibition to Dr. Buchanan to publish his sermons on the prophecies ; the 
disgraceful delay in disconnecting Government with the pilgrimages to 
Juggarnath; and the salutes to idols and other cemionies at Madras, which 
compelled the noble and brave Sir Peregrine Maitland to resign. Even 
my amiable and beloved friend and brother Bishop Come was rebuked by 
the Madras Government, in 1836, for the mildest exercise of what he con- 
sidered his appropriate duty in expressing his sympathy with Sir Peregrine 
on that occasion." 



HEADLANDS OF INDIAN HISTORY. 1 5 

is difficult to conceive how the English power could 
have survived the attack. The danger was all the 
greater since an infatuation of security and confidence 
in the native soldiery, completely lulled the authorities 
to sleep, and totally disarmed vigilance. The idea of a 
widespread and thoroughly organized insurrection seems 
never to have occurred to those in power. Though 
signs of the coming storm abounded, they were disre- 
garded and misinterpreted by an indolent conceit ; indeed, 
when the storm had broken, the first preparations were 
childishly inadequate to the emergency. 

A watchful and overruling Providence mercifully broke 
the concerted force of the assault. The outbreak among 
the native soldiery was precipitated at Meerut, a large 
military cantonment in Northwest India, close to the old 
Mogal capital of Delhi ! Here, some native troopers had 
been imprisoned for mutinous conduct, and on the next 
day, Sunday, loth May, three thousand native troops rose 
in open revolt. They murdered their officers, fired the 
houses of the European residents, flung open the doors 
of the criminal jails, and then marched off to Delhi, where 
they laid their arms and standard at the feet of the old 
relic of the Mogal dynasty, Bahadur Shah, and saluted 
him Emperor of India. A large European force stood 
paralyzed and motionless, unable to act because of 
the incapacity of its commander. In Delhi, the large 
native soldiery rebelled to a man, and the slender British 



l6 HEADLANDS OF INDIAN HISTORY. 

force and the European residents with the women and 
children, were either destroyed, or had to flee for their 
hves. Thus the rebelhon received a centre and an 
inspiration; and Delhi became the capital of national 

crime. 

Meanwhile, the flames spread far and wide. All 
Northern India was on fire. Station after station followed 
the example, and the native soldiery, after the usual dis- 
plays of lawlessness, cruelty and rapacity, marched on to 
Delhi to swell the ranks of mutiny. 

In the Panjab, the land of the five rivers, John Law- 
rence, the sagacious statesman, the stern soldier, the 
devout Christian, held the reins of government, and was 
the first to apprehend the seriousness of the situation. 
With a vigorous and unfaltering hand, he disarmed the 
Sepoy regiments in the Panjab, and dismissed the troops 
to their homes. In Lahore, the capital of the Panjab, 
four thousand sepoyS were so ably manoeuvered in the 
presence of a mere handful of armed Europeans, that 
they were compelled to pile their arms and retire. Thus, 
maintaining order in his own territory, he organized 
Regiments of native Shikh * soldiers, and sent them on 
with all the European troops he could spare, for the 

* The Shikh^ are the inhabitants of the Panjab, totally dififerent in relig-,, 
ion and race from the ordinary Hindu. They are singularly M^arlike and ' 
brave ; and throughout the terrible ordeal of the Sepoy mutiny, staunchly ■ 
maintained their fidelity to the English. 



HEADLANDS OF INDIAN HISTORY. 1 7 

capture of Delhi. " On, on to Delhi," was his constant 
cry. It has been truly said, " To John Lawrence, more 
than to any other, more than to thousands of others, was 
owing the conquest of Delhi, and the safety of the whole 
Northwest. * 

In a conflagration so Avide and so disastrous, it is not 
easy to fix the eye upon particular places or events. But 
a few of the chief incidents of this national convulsion 
demand notice. 

Cawnpore is a city of great commercial importance in 
the northwest of India, on the river Ganges. Here, at 
the time of the rebellion, there was a strong body of 
native soldiery, a slender European force, and a large 
community of English residents. A few miles distant, 
at his country-seat of Bithoor, there dwelt a disappointed 
relic of the old Mahratta dynasty, known as Nana Sahib. 
He was the illegitimate son of the old prince, and had 
inherited his riches, although denied his pension by the 
British government. He accordingly indulged the venom 
of a bitter spite against the English, although outwardly 
their Avarmest friend. 

When the flame of rebellion began to spread through 
the northern plains of India, General Wheeler, who 
commanded the Cawnpore garrison, cast up a light 
entrenchment of earth around two or three barracks, and 
manned it with a few guns. The Nana Sahib made pro- 

* Trotter's History of India. 

B 



l8 HEADLANDS OF INDIAN HISTORY. 

fessions of warm friendship, and promised a Mahratta 
force should the English be threatened. At last the 
dreaded day came ; the sepoy regiments rose to a man, 
committed the usual atrocities, and then marched on 
toward Delhi. The European community meanwhile 
retired into their hastily improvised entrenchment. And 
now the arch-traitor, Nana, throwing off his disguise, 
followed the mutinous soldiers, and persuaded them — 
with extravagant offers of booty, — to lay siege to the 
British defences. On June 6th, the whole host, aug- 
mented by thousands of armed and lawless rabble, 
invested the entrenchments ; and, erecting batteries, 
opened a heavy fire upon it. Three weeks of unpar- 
alleled gallantry and suffering on the part of the defenders 
followed. Fourteen heavy guns kept up an incessant 
fire, to which the English could respond with only eight 
field pieces. The terrible sun of a June summer, and 
the constant fear of the approaching rains added to their 
multiplied distresses. One barrack was burnt down over 
their heads, while the others were thoroughly riddled 
with shot and shell. 

So hopeless was their condition, that when the Nana 
Sahib proposed terms of safe and honorable capitulation, 
they were eagerly received. He offered to provide boats 
to carry the European garrison, with the women and 
children, to Allahabad, on condition that the entrench- 
ments were evacuated, and all arms and treasure surren- 



HEADLANDS OF INDIAN HISTORY. 1 9 

dered. On the 27th June, the worn-out but gallant defend- 
ers left their defences, and with hopeful hearts marched 
down to the river-side where the boats were moored. No 
sooner embarked, however, than some guns which had 
been planted in ambuscade were run out and opened fire 
upon the helpless garrison. Many fell to rise no more. 
The survivors were then drawn upon the beach, and the 
males instantly destroyed. The women and children were 
driven off to a place of confinement in the native city. 

Meanwhile, a relieving force, under General Henry 
Havelock, was advancing upon the city. Although 
much impeded, it was now even upon the threshold. 
Thrice did the Nana essay to give the irresistible English 
battle, and thrice was he miserably defeated. At last, on 
the 15th July, the traitorous miscreant collected his 
spoils together and prepared to flee. But before going, 
he perpetrated the most diabolical act of his fiend-like 
career; he ordered the massacre of the incarcerated 
women and children. The terrible order was barbarously 
carried out ; with gun-shot, sword and hatchet that help- 
less company was dispatched at nightfall. In the morn- 
ing, the ruthless butchers again visited the chamber of 
blood, and actually found some who had survived the 
night. Then dragging the living with the dead, they 
piled up the bodies of their victims, two hundred in all, 
in a well in the court-yard. Upon that well stands 
to-day, a beautiful monument, with a peculiarly touching 



20 HEADLANDS OF INDIAN HISTORY. 

and appropriate inscription, erected by the English gov- 
ernment. 

When, a httle later, Havelock's soldiers rushed into the 
city, they visited this chamber of blood. Curdled with 
horror, they stood transfixed. The rooms were slippery 
with blood. Sword-cuts upon the walls, carrying away 
many a fair tress of hair. Leaves of Bibles, and pocket 
books, with touching notes and thrilling mementoes. 
The hardy veterans could stand it no longer. Kneeling 
upon the floor, and placing their dirk between their 
teeth, the veterans of the 79th Highlanders vowed 
vengeance against the ruthless assassins ! That vow, so 
terribly made, was terribly kept. 

Disasters like this spread dejection and dismay 
throughout the British possessions. Rebellion reigned 
rampant. The common people, in immense hordes, 
committed the most awful depredations, and joined the 
insurgents. Native states and princes, who had been our 
allies, now either openly espoused the enemy, or faltered 
in their professions of friendship. Fearful atrocities were 
committed in Fatehgarh, Jhansi, Bareilly, and many 
other places. Agra, the seat of the local government, 
was threatened ; two battles were fought in sight of the 
stone fortress, where, for thirteen months, the English 
force and residents were incarcerated. All alone the line 
of British rule the battle raged, and fire, blood and 
desolation marked the track of the fiend-like mutineers. 



HEADLANDS OF INDIAN HISTORY. 21 

The eye of all India was, however, fixed upon Delhi. 
A British force assembled, as early as June, upon the 
heights above the fort, but they were more besieged than 
besieging. The city was strongly fortified and garrisoned 
by more than thirty thousand well-disciplined troops ; 
while all around, the country was up in arms against the 
foreign rule. Reinforcements, including a strong siege 
train, having arrived on the 7th September, four batteries, 
with fifty heavy guns and mortars, opened a deadly fire 
upon the Mogal citadel. On the 13th, two breaches 
were reported practicable. The assault was made next 
day. Only six thousand men could be reckoned on 
for this service of danger. Divided into four parties, 
with another as a reserve, the storming force swept 
onward like an avalanche. Hundreds fell under the 
murderous musketry, or were cut down hand to 
hand. No quarters were asked or given. Deeds of 
daring and gallantry were too profuse to be marked as 
special. One of the most heroic spirits was the accom- 
plished Nicholson, to whom that day had been confided 
the post of honor and of danger. This was to blow 
open the Cashmere gate, and then to storm the city at 
its most deadly side. The day ended ; the gate was 
blown open, the storming was a complete success, but 
the brave Nicholson had fallen at the head of his gallant 
column. 

The city cost six such days of fighting before it was 



22 HEADLANDS OF INDIAN HISTORY. 

captured. Hand to hand, foot to foot, bayonet clashing 
against the gleaming tahvdr, street by street, lane after 
lane, the conflict raged ; but at last the British ensign 
floated over the citadel ; and the capital of the nation's 
rebellion lay prostrate at the feet of the conquerors. 
That siege and capture cost the English three thousand 
eight hundred and thirty-seven of her bravest troops ; 
but the moral effect of the victory was incalculable. If 
Delhi had not speedily fallen, all India would have been 
up in arms, and the English rule exterminated. With 
its fall, British prestige and power revived, and the dread 
rebellion received a crushing blow. 

Lucknow was another strong centre of insurrection. 
It is the capital city of Oudh, the then most recently 
annexed province in India, and the den of anarchy and 
lawlessness. Having contributed more than two-thirds 
of the Sepoy regiments from its cities and villages, it 
could not but have the strongest sympathy with the 
spirit of revolt ; while the wealthy land-holders and 
native princes, smarting under the effects of the recent 
annexations to British rule, stood ready to foment and 
encourage this spirit to its farthest length. The strong 
hand which governed this province, Henry Lawrence, 
brother of John Lawrence of the Panjab, ably provided 
for the coming emergency, while averting the storm as 
long as it could possibly be restrained. 

At last the fearful hurricane was unloosed, and the 



HEADLANDS OF INDIAN HISTORY. 23 

British garrison, with the EngHsh residents, were beseiged 
in the fortified premises known as the Residency. 
Around them, panted and bayed tens of thousands of 
blood-thirsty soldiery, armed and fully equipped. The 
whole country besides was in arms, and the prospect of 
the besieged was anything but cheering. Very soon 
after, Henry Lawrence received a mortal wound, and 
while sinking back upon the couch of death, uttered the 
just epitaph for his tomb, "I have tried to do my duty." 
His last advice to his successor was : " Whatever you 
do, never surrender." 

Well did those upon whose shoulders the chivalrous 
mantle of Henry Lawrence fall, obey the injunction. 
For four whole months the siege was fiercely pressed, 
and as gallantly defended, Assaults, storming parties 
and mines were all tried, but in vain. The garrison, 
greatly thinned in numbers, worn with fatigue, depressed 
with a vain and weary waiting for relief which never 
seemed to come, still held out. 

Meanwhile, the gallant Havelock and the chivalrous 
Outram were pressing forward to the rescue, with all the 
haste possible through an armed and hostile country. It 
was constant fighting, a charging through foes who, 
though beaten back again and again, ever surged to the 
front, in numbers whelming and terrible. At last, on the 
25th September, the head of the relieving columns, liter- 
ally cleaving its way through obstructing foes, appeared 



24 HEADLANDS OF INDIAN HISTORY. 

at the gate of the Residency. What a moment! The 
feeble garrison smiled with hope once more ; even the 
wounded crawled out of their beds and took the swarthy 
hands of their deliverers. As to these gallant men, they 
danced and wept and sang as they clasped the hands of 
the worn men and pale-cheeked women, and tossed the 
children in the air in sheer exhilaration and delight. 
Then a shout from the victors, feebly joined in by the 
enfeebled garrison, rent the air and told the rebels that 
they had been balked of their prey ! 

Although relieved, the garrison with their deliverers 
were constrained to stand another siege, until, in 
November, they were finally borne out of the Resi- 
dency by the strong force of Sir Colin Campbell. The 
gallant Havelock, the heroic succourer of Cawnpore, the 
deliverer of Lucknow, worn out with fatigue, here 
exchanged the equipment of war for the crown of the 
immortal victor. After a long career of distinguished 
and generous heroism, and of singular Christian fidelity 
and usefulness, he was borne home upon the shield of his 
faith ; his last words being to his son, '' Come hither, my 
son, and see how a Christian can die.'' His remains lie 
in Alambagh, Lucknow, awaiting the resurrection of the 
just. 

The mutiny was quelled, not extinguished. The fire 
still smouldered, here and there breaking out into flames, 
for the space of two whole years. The smoke of battle 



HEADLANDS OF INDIAN HISTORY. 25 

at last broke upon the retreating administration of the 
old Trading Company, and the inauguration of the direct 
government of the English Crown. Surely, " He putteth 
down one, and setteth up another." 

On the 1st January, 1877, this political act was con- 
summated by the proclamation of Her Majesty Queen 
Victoria, as Empress of India. This was done at an 
Imperial Assemblage of the native potentates and princes, 
in the old capital of Delhi. It was an imposing gathering. 
In the presence of sixty-three ruling princes (including 
the Nizam o{ Hyderabad, the Nawab of Tank, the Begum 
of Bhopdl, the Gaekwar of Baroda, and the Maharajahs 
of Gwalior, Indorc, Oodeyporc, Jcypore, JodJiporc and 
Bhurtpore), and three hundred titular chiefs, the sov- 
ereignty of the British crown in India was proclaimed 
and accepted. This event, politically, was of more 
importance than is evident upon the surface. It demon- 
strated to the native rulers of India a tangible govern- 
ment which had elements of power and permanence. 
The E. I, Company was an abstraction which the native 
mind could not comprehend, and the very fact of its 
being a trading association gave it a tentative aspect. 
But more than this, the change established the supremacy 
of the British crown. In their own governmental econ- 
omy there was provision for a Suzerain or Sovereign, 
who should be the arbiter of destiny to the neighbouring 
kingdoms. This position is now demanded by and 



26 HEADLANDS OF INDIAN HISTORY. 

accorded to the British crown, which therefore claims 
universal attachment and allegiance. 

To the empire itself, the change has been one of 
appreciable benefit. It has brought India and its admin- 
istration closer to England, and admitted both to a full 
and free hearing in Parliament. It has proved the era 
of signal material prosperity, and it has opened the 
portals for missionary labor more widely than before. 
The missionaries neither ask nor expect any favors ; they 
are content with the administration which evenhandedly 
places them upon the same platform with the religionists 
around them. This rule has, on the whole, been honored 
by the crown, although instances are on record where 
opposition and interference have been construed as 
synonymous with neutrality. 

If wrongs and injuries towards the natives of India 
stained the former administrations, the government under 
the crown has certainly swung to the opposite extreme. 
A system of conciliation and caressing bordering upon 
the childishly sentimental, has been resorted to in the 
hope, doubtless, of winning the attachment and fidelity 
of the natives. Preferments, honors and opportunities 
have been extended to them, from which the European 
and Anglo-Indian subjects of the crown are iniquitously 
debarred. There is not a right-minded man but would 
be willing that equal rights and opportunities should be 
extended to all classes of British-Indian subjects ; but a 



HEADLANDS OF INDIAN HISTORY. 2/ 

fawning partiality cannot but be interpreted as an index 
of fear by the recipients of the favors, and lead the 
injured and neglected to estrangement of heart and 
alienation of interest from the governing power. 

From the preceding political survey of India, the fol- 
lowing conclusions are unavoidable : 

1. The Hindu in his present environments, is incapable 
of self-government. He has had a trial of three thou- 
sand years, but has failed. The reason of failure is not to 
be looked for in any physical or mental incapacity, but in 
the disastrous religious system which has overshadowed 
the nation. The caste-system strikes at the root of 
national cohesion and unity, while priestly craft and arro- 
gance in seeking to aggrandize themselves, deprive 
patriotism of its loftiest and purest inspiration. If the 
administration of the country were placed in the hands 
of the Hindu to-day, the land would be torn with fac- 
tions and anarchy, and the supreme power would be in 
the market at the command of the deepest craft and most 
subtle cunning. 

2. The Mahomedan usurper has equally demonstrated 
his incapability to govern India. A selfish sensuality 
makes his sceptre nerveless and unstable. From Mah- 
mud of Ghazni to the last relic of the Mogal Empire, 
the course of the Mahomedan invader has been to sacri- 
fice the country to his own base and selfish interests. 

3. The inauguration and extension of British rule in 



28 HEADLANDS OF INDIAN HISTORY. 

India, are manifestly in accordance with the Hne of 
Divine Providence, and therefore on the whole in the 
best interests of the governed. ^ It should be remembered 
that the British did not wrest the sceptre from the lawful 
rulers of India, but from the unprincipled and sordid 
usurpers, and this only when no alternative remained, 
but to push forward to conquest. 

4. This extension of rule and power, however, is to be ' 
looked upon as the opportunity, divinely vouchsafed, for 
the elevation of the great nation, in material and spiritual 
good. If this end be not fulfilled, then is the mission of 
England, with all its grand possibilities, utterly thwarted 
and defeated. 

What is the political condition of India to-day? Under 
the Suzerainty of the British crown, native prince and 
potentate dwell securely. Those directly subject to 
English rule enjoy the blessings of good and safe gov- 
ernment. Each man may dwell securely under his own 
vine and fig tree, and eat of the labors of his hands. A 
just and vigorous administration guards his life, liberty 
and possessions, while culture and progress spread untold 
opportunities before him. There is not an intelligent 
native but will acknowledge the benefits of British rule 
and power, and there is little doubt that he speaks as he 
feels. 

And yet we cannot refrain from expressing the con- 
viction that underneath this glossy surface there smould- 



HEADLANDS OF INDIAN HISTORY. 2g 

er the embers of the old fire. A national uneasiness 
and unrest, broken here and there by kindlings of posi- 
tive hostility, lie beneath, unknown and unsuspected. If 
the match of religious fanaticism kindled this inflammable 
temper before, is there any certain security that it might 
not kindle it again? 

Culture, education, conciliation are alike unavailing to 
neutralize the inflammability of this temper. There are 
but two remedies for this, the steel bayonet, or the sword 
of the Spirit. Military force may over-awe and keep this 
unruly spirit in subjection ; but the gospel of Christ 
alone, when received and obeyed, can transform the 
natural hostility of India to foreign rule, into true and 
lasting loyalty. 

And now after nearly forty centuries of changeful 
history, during which the people have gone steadily 
backward, until to-day, India sits at the feet of the 
nations ; after numerous foreign dominations and usurpa- 
tions impoverishing her resources and desolating her 
beauty, after a hundred years of governmental probation, 
neglected and unimproved, the door of duty and of 
opportunity opens before the Christian people and crown 
of England. Shall they have the wisdom, the faith and 
the courage to enter it, is the stupendous question of 

THE HOUR and THE NATION ! 



II. 

VEDISM; 

OR, 

Speculative Hinduism. 



To the student, desirous of rearing up an intelligible 
account of Hinduism as a system, there is certainly 
material enough available. Books, — mythological, 
legendary, ethical, statistical, in abundance ; — books, 
sedate as Blackstone, extravagant as Munchausen, poetic 
as Homer, statementary as a National Census Report. 
Time, — in vistas of ages and seons and cycles, putting 
geologic eras utterly into the shade, looking away dimly 
into eternal perspectives. Actors, — natural and super- 
natural ; in batallions, cohorts, legions, armies ; — repre- 
senting men, monkies, giants, gods and demi-gods. 
Theatre of action, — continents and oceans and mountains, 
clear beyond and above the ken of geographers, ancient 
or modern ! 

Yes, material enough and to spare ! Enough slush 

and slime and slippery clay, but very few stones, and 

these so crooked and irregular, as to be impossible to 
30 



VEDISM ; OR, SPECULATIVE HINDUISM. 3 1 

lay straight or even. Indeed, as far as the materials are 
concerned, for abundance and variety, it would be easier 
to build up a hundred diverse systems from them than 
one intelligible and consistent whole. The difficulty is 
to so interpret and harmonize the abundant material on 
hand, as to shape out a connected Religious and Philo- 
sophical System. And, in truth, after the most careful 
analysis and elucidation, it will be found that Hinduism, 
instead of being a compact, integral and well-defined 
religious belief, is, really a conglomeration of an endless 
number and variety of thought, principles and policies, 
bound together by a few strong sinews and covered over 
by a thin skin, giving the whole an appearance of evenness 
and uniformity. 

To make the subject intelligible, we need to look back 
some four thousand years, and we see India in the posses- 
sion of a simple, uncultured, aboriginal race, dwelling in 
hills and caves and jungles, symbolized in the poetry of 
modern times by monkeys. The first flow into this dark 
sea is supposed to have been that of the primitive Scyth- 
ian and Mongolian immigrants from the steppes of Tar- 
tary and Tibet ; and the present Dravidian race in the 
South of India is believed to represent this immigration. 
These early settlers in part mingled with the aboriginal 
inhabitants, and made some progress in civilization. 
They were dark in complexion and were called Dasyus, 
or natives. Of the primitive religion of these tribes, we can 



1r> 



vedism; or, speculative Hinduism. 



J- 

have no certain knowledge, but it is probable that Fetich- 
ism and devil worship prevailed among the ruder tribes, 
and " tree and serpent " and phallic worship among the 
more advanced.* 

At this period there dwelt upon the great table-land of 
Central Asia, probably in the region surrounding the 
source of the Oxus near Bokhara, that great family called 
Arya or noble, speaking a language the common source 
of Sanscrit, Prakrit, Zand, Persian and Armenian in Asia, 
and of the Hellenic, Italic, Keltic, Teutonic and Slavonic 
languages in Europe.f Separating into distinct parties, 
they flowed respectively into Europe, Persia and India ; 
and thus the one great Aryan family separated into dis- 
tinct and different nationalities. 

We follow the Aryan immigrants into India, and find 
them spreading themselves in the tract bordering upon 
the five rivers of the Panjab, thence through the fertile 
plain of the Ganges, and beyond, over Central India as 
far as the Vindhya mountains. Leading the way of a 
higher civilization and of an irresistible force, they press 
the older settlers into the hills, or farther south, and thus 
cover the best part of India with their superior prestige 
and power. 

The question now arises, have we any reliable record 
of the religion of these early Aryan settlers ? It is here 
that the oldest extant literature of the Hindus comes to 

* Robson's Hinduism, p. 29. f Monier Williams' Hinduism, p. 3. 



VEDISM ; OR, SPECULATIVE HINDUISM. 33 

our help. These are in Sanscrit, in the form of certain 
old Hymns, known as the Rig Veda. The oldest of 
these go back to more than three thousand years from the 
present date, or 1 200 B. c. In these Hymns, we find the glim- 
mering of the recognition of One Supreme Deity already 
becoming obscured by fanciful and polytheistic specula- 
tions. Take for example, the following, as an expression 
of this struggling belief : — 

" Then there was neither Aught nor Naught, no air nor sky beyond. 
What covered all ? Where rested all ? In wateiy gulf profound ? 
Nor death was then, nor deathlessness, nor change of night and day, 
That one breathed calmly, self-sustained ; naught else beyond it lay. 
Gloom hid in gloom existed first, — one sea, eluding view. 
That one, a void in chaos wrapt, by inward fervour grew." * 

Such glimmerings, taken in connection with the philo- 
logical unity already adverted to, afford room for the 
belief that before our Aryan forefathers parted on the 
Highlands of Central Asia, a consistent Monotheism was 
their accepted creed. Nor is it difficult to conceive how, 
upon settling in India, the Indo Aryans, brought into 
contact with the forces of nature as they never had been 
nor could be in their cold inland habitation, should have 
begun torecognize the presence and power of the Supreme 
Deity in the majestic forces around them. Thus the 
foundation of the physiolatry and pantheism, evident in 
the later Vedas, was manifestly laid. Those physical 

*R. V. X. 129. Translated by Dr. Muirin Sanskrit Texts, vol. v. 
c 



34 vedism; or, speculative Hinduism. 

forces which awed their minds and affected their Hves 
were invoked, first symbolically doubtless, but afterward 
as actual deities. Dyaus, the sky, as the place of God's 
abode ; Aditi, as the representation of the infinite ; Varuna, 
as the god of night ; Mitra, as the god of day, are each 
addressed and adopted as deities. 

In a country so hot and scorched as India, the god of 
dew and rain could not but be recognized as a most use- 
ful and potent deity, and hence we find Indra elevated to 
an important rank in the scale of divinity ; and hence, too, 
Agni, the god of fire, and Surya, the sun, are naturally 
associated with Indra, and form the chief triad in the 
Vedic hymns. 

These representations of physical force are multiplied, 
until a sacred canon of thirty-three is reached. Unlike 
the mythology of other nations, however, which allots 
proportionate relations to all its deities, each god here is 
addressed as Supreme, and thus even through these fan- 
ciful and corrupt imaginings, the sentiment of One 
Supreme Deity is discernible. There is no evidence that 
these gods were represented by any external image or 
form, nor does it appear that temples were constructed 
for their honor or worship. The language of these hymns 
shows that the great burden of invocation was for the 
forgiveness of sin, and for the averting of the Divine 
wrath, chiefly in view of this world. To this end prayers 
and prostrations were performed, oblations of flowers 



VEDISM ; OR, SPECULATIVE HINDUISM. 35 

and butter offered and sacrifices ordained. These sacri- 
fices were to be of four kinds, — that of the goat, the cow, 
the horse, and of man, though the precise signification of 
these sacrifices is not defined. 

There is no allusion to the doctrine of transmigration, 
which became the triple chain of the later Hindu system. 
It is certain also that while in these early Vedic days, 
there were social divisions and classes, the terrible giant, 
Caste, had not laid its throttling hand upon the throat of 
progress. There were no restrictions against animal food, 
even the flesh of the cow, nor to widow marriage. 
Toward a future life there are only dim and furtive 
glances ; immortality is not represented as a natural 
property of the soul, but as the gift of the gods to the 
good and virtuous. The Indo Aryans are represented as 
an intelligent, hardy and thriving people, — active, ener- 
getic and persevering ; determined to push their con- 
quests in arms as well as in progress to the farthest pos- 
sible limits. 

And now we come to one of the darkest and most 
degrading transitions in religious and social life which 
the history of man has ever furnished. And the reason 
here, as in every similar case, is to be found in the selfish 
domination by an arrogant few, over the conscience of 
the ignorant and superstitious multitude, in the sacred 
name of religion and truth. But how was this calamitous 
transition brought about ? 



36 vedism; or, speculative Hinduism. 

We have already seen that there existed among the 
early Indo Aryans those social distinctions which were 
at once natural and necessary, without the hard bigotry 
of caste. These distinctions, in view of their sacred duties 
and requirements, could not but take on a religious 
aspect. If there were sacrifices, there could not but be 
priests to sacrifice ; and if there were gods to worship, 
there must be religious teachers to conduct the worship. 
There were other distinctions again purely secular : the 
soldier class, from which the-king was chosen ; the trades- 
people and agriculturists ; and, last of all, the poor and 
ignorant masses. This was a condition of things as nat- 
ural as it was necessary. At this juncture, a solitary 
passage in one of the most recent hymns of the Rig 
Veda struck the fatal match, and soon the whole pile of 
sacerdotal pretension was in a blaze. This hymn is gen- 
erally admitted to be a comparatively modern production, 
and it may be doubted whether the passage in question 
is not an artful interpolation. It runs as follows : 

'* The embodied spirit has a thousand heads, 

A thousand eyes, a thousand feet, around 

On every side enveloping the earth, 

Yet filling space no larger than a span. 
* ^ ^ ■ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ 

" From Him, called Purusha, was born Viraj, 
And from Viraj was Purusha produced, 
Whom gods and holy men made their oblation. 
With Purusha as victim, they performed 
A sacrifice. When they divided him, 



VEDISM ; OR, SPECULATIVE HINDUISM. 37 

How did they cut him up ? What was his mouth ? 
What were his arms ? And what his thighs, his feet ? 
The Brahman was his mouth, the kingly soldier 
Was made his arms, the husbandman his thighs. 
The servile Sudra issued from his feet."* 

Thus buttressed, the priestly arrogance of the sacerdo- 
tal class was not slow to build up the hard and high walls 
of caste superstition. The Brahmans were not only the 
highest caste, they were a different, and altogether higher 
order of being, — indeed, as demi-gods, they claimed not 
only homage, but worship. The Kshatriya, or warrior 
class, came next, and the Vaisyas, — merchants and agri- 
culturists, followed. These three castes were the sacred 
'^twice-born," by virtue of investiture with the sacred 
thread. At an immeasurcable distance from them, came 
the vile Sudra, the servant of all. Of course, all the 
sacred offices aud mysteries were the exclusive monopoly 
of the Brahmans, Each caste was absolutely walled off, 
and intermarriage, social intercourse, and even personal 
contact, were rigidly interdicted, and the interdiction was 
enforced by the severest penalties. These terrible dis- 
tinctions were, moreover, confirmed by legislature, "If a 
twice-born man, for instance, abused one of the same 
caste, he was to be punished by a small fine, but if a once- 
born man spoke disrespectfully of the caste of one of the 
twice-born, an iron style, ten fingers long, was to be 
thrust red hot into his mouth ; for insult to the sacred 

*Mundala, x, 90. M. Williams, p, 30. 



38 vedism; or, speculative Hinduism. 

caste, the Sudra's tongue was to be slit through." It was 
the greatest possible crime to put a Brahman to death, — 
the severest punishment for the vilest crime being ban- 
ishment. 

The religiously servile condition of the Sudras may be 
inferred from the following story narrated in the Rama- 
yana : When Rama was reigning in Ayodhya, a Brahman 
complained to him that the kingdom was under a curse 
owing to his heedless rule, adducing as a proof that his 
son, five years old, had died. Rama thereon proceeded, 
sword in hand, to search his kingdom for the cause. By 
the side of a lake, he saw a man engaged in intense 
devotion, who, when interrogated, confessed himself to 
be a Sudra. For a servile creature thus to seek admis- 
sion into heaven was an iniquity sufficient to overv/helm 
his kingdom. Rama, by one stroke of his sword, severed 
his head from his body, whereat the gods were so pleased 
that they showered blessings upon Rama and restored 
the Brahman's son to life. 

The multiplication of gods, and the setting up and 
worship of idols were the direct fruit of this arrogant 
sacerdotalism. The more dense and debasing the super- 
stition in which the masses were held, the more powerful 
and tenacious the priestly hold ; hence the invention of a 
complex ritualism superadded to a system of bloody sacri- 
fices. Here, too, we have the rise of the great bug-bear doc- 
trine of transmigration, which has for the last twenty-five 



VEDISM; or, speculative HINDUISM. 39 

hundred years ridden the Hindu conscience hke some ter- 
rible nightmare. Thus the Brahman had the vulgar and 
superstitious multitude completely under his control, and 
could ply his arrogant trade with ever-increasing gain. 

Two memorable national episodes belong to this 
period, which, as laying the foundation of a future hero- 
worship, demand notice. These episodes have been 
commemorated in the two great epic poems known as 
the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. The first describes 
the marvelous exploits of Rama Chandra, the son of 
Dasartha, king of Ayodhya. He won his beautiful bride, 
Sita, by stringing, while only a stripling a bow so pow- 
erful that the strongest men had failed to bend. The 
jealous intrigues of a younger wife of his father's, in favor 
of her son, Bharata, however, caused Rama's banishment. 
With his wife, Sita, and his brother, Lakshman, Rama 
went away into a distant forest. While Rama was out 
upon a hunt, Ravana, the dreaded giant-king of Lanka 
(Ceylon) carried off Sita through the air to his kingdom 
in the South. Thereupon, Rama engaged in a long and 
sanguinary contest with Ravana, in which he was greatly 
aided by Sugriva, the king of the monkeys,, under the 
generalship of Hanuman. Rama and his allies invaded 
Lanka, — a bridge having been cast up by the monkeys, 
by tearing down mountains and casting them into the 
sea. With much difficulty, Ravana was slain, and Rama 
recovered his wife, whose virtue having been completely 



40 vedism; or, speculative Hinduism. 

established, she and her husband were restored to the 
kingdom of Dasartha, where they long reigned in peace. 

The Mahabharata is an embellished account of the 
struggle for supremacy between two rival Kshatriya races, 
known, as the Pandavs and the Kauravs. Yudhi-shthira, 
the eldest representative of the former, to whom the title 
to the kingdom of Hastinapur belonged, is artfully per- 
suaded to play at dice by the rival party, so that, in the 
end, he loses his title to the kingdom. A disgraceful 
exile follows, but after thirteen years the Pandavs, burn- 
ing with revenge, determine to wrest the kingdom from 
the artful Kauravs. The terrible conflict took place near 
Delhi, and raged with fierceness for eighteen days, 
resulting in a decisive though bloody victory for the Pan- 
davs. In this struggle they were ably seconded by 
Krishna, king of Dwarka, in Guzerat. Yudhi-shthira is 
crowned king of Hastinapur ; but, wearied and sad at 
heart, he finally renounces his hardly-earned kingdom, 
and takes liis departure toward Indra's heaven in Mount 
Meru. 

We now arrive at an important era in the moral and 
religious history of the world. There are times when a 
sullen sky glares upon a stagnant sea, and above, beneath, 
around, there is neither glimmer of light nor stir of life. 
Then the putrid stagnation is suddenly broken as though 
by the bursting of some awful dynamite in the very womb 
of death. Thus it was throughout the world about 



VEDISM ; OR, SPECULATIVE HINDUISM. 4I 

600 B. c, — the blackest hour of an awful night! 
It was at this juncture that a general stirring of life, — an 
earnest reaching forth after the hidden mysteries of life, 
death and eternity, — agitated the world. 

While the echoes of the message of Isaiah, — the fore- 
most Messianic prophet, — breathing hope and cheer 
through the promised coming of the Redeemer, were 
still rolling upon the hot plains of a sin-swept world, the 
breath of an earnest soul-enquiry, both deep and wide, 
stirred the civilized world. Pythagoras in Greece, Zoro- 
aster in Persia, Confucius in China, were but types of 
the thinking mind, which, throwing off the slumber of 
years, arose to assert its right to explore the dark mys- 
teries behind the veil of mortal life. What about India 
at this time of universal awakening, — India, upon whose 
face there brooded the darkest night of ignorance and 
superstition ? 

Just about this time, Buddha Goutama comes upon 
the scene of Indian religious history. It is difficult to 
eliminate the mythical from the purely historical in the 
life of this remarkable and interesting personage. He 
was the son, we are informed, of the king of Kapila 
Vastu, a kingdom at the foot of the Himalayas, and was 
born about six hundred years before our era. He early 
manifested a religious and contemplative disposition. 
At his father's request, he married, and for some time 
passed his life in tranquil ease and quiet, but it is cer- 



42 vedism; or, speculative Hinduism. 

tain that there were strivings within unquenched and 
unquenchable. 

One day, while driving out, he met an aged man, totter- 
incr on his staff; on another day he met a loathsome leper, 
stricken with deadly disease, and yet on another, the 
corpse of a dead man borne out. " Are age, decrepitude, 
disease and death the common lot of all men," reflected 
the young prince ; " if so, then wealth, rank, luxury are 
all lying, disappointing vanities ! " Shortly after, he met 
a recluse, who had renounced wealth and pleasure, 
and spent his time in solitude and meditation. This 
decided the young prince. That same night, his first- 
born son was born, and there is something peculiarly 
touching in the story of the young prince, as under the 
pressure of an all-absorbing conviction, — he creeps in 
stealthily at night to have a last look at his wife and child, 
and then quits home, kindred and kingdom, to embrace 
the life of a mendicant, if haply he might find deliverance 
from the ills of life and from the pangs of death. 

Repairing to a forest, he gave himself up to the sever- 
est bodily austerities. For six years the Buddha, known 
as Sakya Muni, (the Sakya sage or recluse) afflicted him- 
self with fasting and other mortifications. During these 
years he learned the lying vanity of idol worship, the 
hoUowness of all ceremonial and sacrificial rites, and the 
utter fictitiousness of caste distinctions, but he obtained 
not the deliverance he sought for. Disappointed, he cast 



vedism; or, speculative Hinduism. 43 

aside all these austere practices and ceremonies, and was 
forthwith deserted by those who had been attracted to 
him in his exile by the severe sanctity of his life. 

Alone, discouraged and weary, he determined upon 
one effort more, before he should abandon the struggle 
forever. He now betook himself to a secluded position 
beneath a mimosa tree, where he gave himself up to severe 
meditation. Here, after a fearful mental struggle, in 
which he was assailed by demons, he at last triumphed, 
and obtained the deliverance he had longed for. Resolved 
to publish abroad the good tidings, he returned to his 
father's house, where, after a time, his father, wife, and 
all his family became his disciples ; yet he continued a 
recluse, without habitation or worldly possessions ; trav- 
eling from city to city, village to village, spreading the 
knowledge he had gained, until, at the age of eighty, he 
died, or as the Buddhists say, entered Nirvana. Buddhism 
spread rapidly and widely, by means of its zealous pro- 
pagandists, until in the reign of King Asoka, it was 
adopted by that monarch as the state religion. 

Now what is Buddhism, and how did it affect the pre- 
valent Brahmanism of the period ? As has been indi- 
cated, Buddhism was the natural reaction from the 
oppressive sacerdotalism of the priestly class. But it 
commands a broader interest than this. It is the product 
of man's thought, the total outcome of man's resources, 
in the most favorable circumstances. Other religions 



44 vedism; or, speculative Hinduism. 

have come professing to answer the great heart-longing 
of humanity, compressed in the inquiry, " What must I 
do to be saved?" as from the Hps of God. Buddhism 
alone boldly and unequivocally declares that it has solved 
the problem without God. In its reactionary aversion to 
Brahmanic idolatry, it dispenses with the Divine Being 
altogether, and affirms that the only God is what man 
himself might become. Hence a Buddhist never really 
prays or worships ; he merely meditates on the perfec- 
tions of Buddha and on the hope of finally attaining 
Nirvana. 

But what is Nirvana, the stmnnuin bonum of this 
sterile system ? It is non-existence or simple annihilation. 
If ceasing to live then, be the desirable goal, the great- 
est possible good, life, — human life, — must be the grav- 
est calamity. This is distinctly affirmed in the four great 
** doctrines of the wheel," supposed to have been revealed 
to Buddha under the mimosa tree ; these are as follows : 

I. Suffering exists wherever there is life. 2. Suffering 
is caused by desire. 3. Release from suffering depends 
on the suppression of desire and extinction of being 
(Nirvana). 4. Nirvana can only be obtained by follow- 
ing the paths pointed out by Buddha. These paths are 
eight in number ; the four which are applicable to all 
men, being right vision, right thoughts, right words, and 
right actions. The other four, applicable to recluses, are 
right living as a recluse, right application to the study of 



VEDISM ; OR, SPECULATIVE HINDUISM. 45 

the law, right memory in recollecting the law, and right 
meditation. 

The doctrine of transmigration is sternly elaborated 
and uncompromisingly maintained. According to Budd- 
hist belief, when a man dies he is immediately born again, 
or appears in a new shape, according to his merit or 
demerit; he may be born in the form of a woman, or a 
slave, a quadruped, a bird, a fish, an insect, a plant, or 
even a piece of inorganic matter. '' He may be born in a 
state of punishment in one of the many Buddhist hells 
(one hundred and thirty-six in all) ; or in the condition 
of a happy spirit or even divinity in heaven ; but what- 
ever the position be, and however long he may live in 
it, the life will have an end, and the individual must be born 
again, and may again be either happy or miserable.*" From 
such a course of existence and its endless uncertainties 
and ills, Nirvana, or non-existence, is the only escape. 

Among the redeeming qualities of this system, 
beside the negative ones of antagonism to caste, idol 
worship and sacerdotalism, may be mentioned the empha- 
sis given to morality, especially the practice of charity 
and benevolence to all animated beings, — the utmost 
regard being shown even to the brutes ; and the practical 
inculcation of the common brotherhood of man, in con- 
sonance with which Buddhism exhibited itself as a relig- 
ion adapted to all men. 

* Garrett's Classical Dictionary. 



46 vedism; or, speculative Hinduism. 

Allowing full credit for these relieving characteristics, 
there is something peculiarly saddening about this sys- 
tem, considering its origin and results. Surely, if ever 
humanity had a fair chance of devising and developing a 
system such as should satisfy man's deepest longings, 
here was its opportunity. Here we behold intense ear- 
nestness, absorbing devotion, and patient toil brooding 
over the great problem, and then we hear the cry, 
"Eureka" — I have found it! We hasten to behold the 
majestic discovery, and lo ! a system truly Saharan in 
its utter sterility. A religion without a God, bemoaning 
this life of opportunity and usefulness as the gravest 
calamity, and looking forward from the hot edge of so 
miserable an existence to a Nirvana of annihilation, as its 
only reUef, its highest joy ! Here, behold man's highest 
endeavor and man's greatest success ! 

The spread of Buddhism, though rapid and, wide, was 
short-lived, as might have been expected. Indeed, but 
for the putrid stagnation which preceded it, it is doubtful 
if the system would have commanded the success it did. 
A long and fierce struggle was maintained by the Brah- 
manical party for their rights and interests, and in the end 
Buddhism, as a distinct system, succumbed. In the 
twelfth centuiy, Hinduism was established throughout 
India, and the only relic of Buddhism now existing is the 
small and unimportant sect of the Jains. 

But while Buddhism as an organization, has disap- 



VEDISM ; OR, SPECULATIVE HINDUISM. 47 

peared, the impress of its footsteps still remains. The 
system of sacrifices discountenanced by Buddha, has 
never fully regained its interest, the doctrine of transmi- 
gration has been vivified, and the efficacy of self-mortifi- 
cation as an aid to final emancipation has been recognized 
and emphasized. Even the terrible doctrine of caste has 
received a violent shaking, though, of course, it has been 
to the interest of Brahmanism to preserve and strengthen 
its coils. 

But the influence of Buddhism in moulding the Hindu 
religion, as we find it to day, is deeper and more exten- 
sive still. The Brahmans in their long conflict, with 
their usual astuteness, saw the necessity of accommoda- 
tion toward an assimilation with the new system. Buddha 
was represented as an incarnation of one of the popular 
gods, and thus taken under the wings of the Hindu 
mythology. The Brahmans were aroused to greater 
intellectual activity, for their appeal to the authority of 
the Vedas was no longer conclusive, since their oppo- 
nents drove them into the field of metaphysics, and 
required them to prove all things. Hence arose succes- 
sively the six schools or Darshans of Hindu philosophy. 
These are contained in the Upanishads, the third division 
of the Veda, regarded not merely as complementary to 
but as the consummation of all previous revelation. 

These six schools are: i. The Nyaya, founded by 
Gotama, 2. The Vaiseshika, by Kanada. 3. The San- 



48 VEDISM ; OR, SPECULATIVE HINDUISM. 

khya, by Kapila. 4- The Yoga, by Patanjali. 5. The 
Miniaiisa, by Jaimini. 6. The Vedanta, by Badarayana 

or Vyasa. 

These again may be arranged into three pairs, the first 
and second, the third and fourth, the fifth and sixth ; each 
of these being substantially the same, the later elucidat- 
ing or confirming the former. 

I. TJie Nyaya and Vaiseshika Schools. 

The first topic of the Nyaya proper is the means or 
instrument by which the right measure of a subject is to 
be obtained, and the second enumerates the subjects upon 
which knowledge is desirable or necessary. The supple- 
mentary Vaiseshika extends this system to physical 
investigations. According to this school, the formation 
of the world is supposed to be effected by the aggrega- 
tion of atoms, v/hich are innumerable and eternal. These 
atoms act by the power cf Adrishta, the unseen force 
derived from the works or acts of a previous world. 
Hence a long chain or succession of creations must be 
supposed so as to originate the force or Adhrishta re- 
quired ; yet beyond all these, there must be an originat- 
ing cause to give the first creative impulse, which this 
philosophy neither accounts for nor explains. 

The name of Isvara, Supreme Lord, occurs once in the 
Nyaya, but no part or province in creatorship is ascribed 
to him. Later Nyaya writers affirm the existence of a 



VEDISM ; OR, SPECULATIVE HINDUISM. 49 

Supreme Soul {Paramdtma)t) distinct from the human 
soul {^Jivdtmaii). The latter they view as eternal, mani- 
fold, distinct from the body, infinite, ubiquitous ; indeed, 
diffused everywhere throughout space, so that my soul 
is in New York and Calcutta at one and the same time, 
though it can only apprehend and feel and act where the 
body is for the time located. 

II. Tlie Sankhya a7id Yoga Schools. 

This traces the whole world of sense from an original, 
primordial Tattva or eternally existing essence called 
Prahdti. This elementary germ is itself made up of 
three constituent principles, called Gtmas, — namely sattva, 
goodness or purity; rajas, passion or activity; and tanias, 
darkness or stolidity. These giinas enter into the com- 
position of all material things in varying proportions. 
In the case of man, they make him noble, selfish or 
brutish, according to the preponderation of goodness, 
passion or darkness respectively. 

Thus the doctrine of evolution, which is paraded in 
our day as the last-born Benjamin of science, was not 
only published, but elaborately formulated by the Hindu 
philosopher twenty-four centuries ago. 

This Prakriti produces twenty-three other tattvas or 
entities, — the soul or spirit being an additional and dis- 
tinct essence, destitute of gwias, though liable to be 
affected by them. 



CO vedism; or, speculative Hinduism. 

Of these twenty-three tattvas, seven things are pro- 
ducers; sixteen are merely productions. Among the 
producers are Biiddhi, or intelligence, whence springs 
Ahankdra, or self-consciousness, and this again produces 
five other subtle principles called Tannidtras. 

Among the sixteen productions, are the five grosser 
elements (ether, air, fire or light, water and earth), the 
five organs of sense, the five organs of action, and an 
internal organ called Mafias or Mind. 

The soul Purusha, is quite distinct from Ahankdra, 
self-consciousness, and Manas, Mind ; and in itself pos- 
sesses neither consciousness, intelligence nor activity. 
Nevertheless, for this soul, Prakidti creates all things, 
which the soul, by the way, so far from appreciating, 
resents and resists, struggling earnestly so as to 
be delivered from the fetters which creation fastens 
upon it. 

There is vague and distant intimation of the existence 
of a Supreme Soul, but as in the previous school, it has 
nothing to do with the act or acts of creation. The Yoga 
supplement teaches the means by which the human soul 
may attain union with the Universal spirit. These are 
by maintaining complete quiescence of mind, by the sup- 
pression of the passions, by earnest meditation, and by 
mental concentration upon the object desired. This lat- 
ter end is sought after by the strangest bodily restraints 
and contortions, suppression of the breath, etc., calculated. 



VEDISM ; OR, SPECULATIVE HINDUISM. 5 I 

if persevered in, to produce a condition of complete 
mind-vacuity. 

III. TJie Mini ansa a) id the Vedanta Schools. 

The Mimansa is not properly a philosophy. It is a 
plea on behalf of the Vedas, as the source of all author- 
ity. It maintains the eternity of the Vedas, and empha- 
sizes the performance of dhainna, duty, because they are 
prescribed in the Vedas, without reference to any Per- 
sonal will or authority. 

The Vedanta, as its name implies, is founded upon the 
concluding part of the Vedas. The creed of this school 
is summed up in the brief formula, ekaui evddvitiyam, — 
" One only without a second." 

It acknowledges one universal essence, called Brahm. 
Its qualities are summed up in three words, sat, chit, 
dnand (being, thought, joy), together forming the desig- 
nation Sach-chid-dnanda ; yet strangely this essence is 
without individual consciousness, knowledge or emotion. 
It is both Creator and creation. Actor and act. This 
universe is Brahm; from him it proceeds, in him it 
breathes, unto him it is dissolved. The Hindu philoso- 
pher illustrates this by a number of time-worn figures; — 
what yarn is to cloth, what earth to a jar, what gold to a 
bracelet, that is Brahm to the universe. 

But how can an impure world be evolved from a pure, 
spiritual essence ? The two former schools avoided this 



52 vedism; or, speculative Hinduism. 

dilemma by dissociating the Supreme spirit from all crea- 
tive act. The Vedantist who evolves all observed pheno- 
mena from Brahm, escapes it by affirming that the 
Universe is Maya, — an illusion merely. The personal 
deity, Isvara, the personal human soul, and the external 
world, are merely a show and a semblance, projected 
from the Essence or Spirit above defined, as the shadow 
is projected by the pillar. 

This Maya, or illusion, has two effects, — it envelopes 
the soul, creating the notion of personality, and it pro- 
jects a world which we regard as external to ourselves. 
The Hindu illustrates this by the dreamer, who in his 
sleep, perceiving himself surrounded by circumstances 
and characters which he believes to be real, thinks, 
and speaks, and acts ; but lo ! he awakes, and finds that all 
these were but fictitious. Thus with this so-called uni- 
verse ; it is but a delusion, a dream without substance or 
reality. All the facts of our consciousness, all the pal- 
pableness of our surroundings avail nothing; they are 
but the imaginings of " a mind diseased," like the ficti- 
tious fancies of a monomaniac. 

Such is a succinct view of the three great divisions of 
Hindu philosophy. The first originates the world from 
a concurrence of eternal atoms by the power oi Adrishta\ 
the second evolves it from a primordial eternal germ, 
Prakriti, operating, however, only in association with 
Purusha, souls ; the third resolves all the material uni- 



VEDISM ; OR, SPECULATIVE HINDUISM. 53 

verse Into an illusion evolved from the One Supreme 
essence or spirit, Brahm. The first two affirm the reality 
of the universe, but make God a phantom, a shadow, an 
empty name ; the third acknowledges a Deity, but 
resolves creation into a fictitious dream-land. All three 
degrade the Deity, fail to solve the problems of actual 
life, or to shed light on man's eternal destiny. 

From a background so dark and conglomorate, starts 
out the system of modern Hinduism. With easy accom- 
modation and omnivorous appetite, it has swallowed, 
digested and then reproduced in some of their charac- 
teristics, the many systems and religions with which it 
has come into contact. Indeed, the tact of the Brahman 
in becoming ** all things to all men" is truly marvelous; 
the most contraband doctrines, usages and practices hav- 
ing been revived, recast and reissued with the superscrip- 
tion of orthodoxy, — while Hinduism has been swelled to 
colossal and mis-shapen proportions, which would have 
toppled over at any time but for its granite foundations 
of caste and sacerdotalism. 

In order to present this gigantic aggregation with some 
regard to conciseness and clearness, let us enquire, in 
order, what is the conception of modern Hinduism with 
regard to the Supreme Deity, man's true nature, final 
human blessedness and the means of attaining to it. 

First, as to the Supreme Deity. Hinduism acknowl- 
edges One Self-Existing, Supreme Spirit, but this Spirit is 



54 vedism; or, speculative Hinduism. 

only an essence, without consciousness, intelligence or 
emotion. He has no care or concern for his creatures, is 
unmoved by their regard or disregard, and is beyond the 
reach of prayer or worship. Distant, self-absorbed, un- 
moved—he is nothing but a Name, the cloud-wreathed 
apex of a pyramidal theology. 

But man has cares, troubles, sorrows, and he needs 
some One who can be touched with sympathy and moved 
to help him. He has, moreover, the instinct of worship, 
and he must have some Being to adore, who will regard 
his homage and receive his worship. Hence the Hindu 
pantheon of thirty-three Crores, or three hundred and 
thirty millions of gods, from the original thirty -three of 
the early Vedas. This immense legion rises tier by tier, 
in an ascending scale, until the top is reached, disclos- 
ing three principal personages, each associated with a 
consort. These three are Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, 
the well-known tri-murti, or divine Triad of modern 
Hinduism. They derive their existence from the One 
Supreme Spirit, whose emanation they are ; and will, 
at the end of the Kalpa or age, be absorbed into him 



agam. 



Brahma, the first, is not to be confounded with Brahm, 
already alluded to as the designation of the Supreme in- 
finite Spirit. Brahma is supposed to be an expansion of 
Agni, the Vedic god of fire, and the generator of life. He 
is regarded as the lord and father of all beings, in which 



vedism; or, speculative Hinduism. 55 

character he is represented in the Veda as having sacri- 
ficed himself for the good of his creatures. 

He is represented as a man with four faces, of a gold 
color, clothed in white and riding on a goose. Though 
first in the tri-murti, and the father of all beings, he is 
but little regarded. He is not adopted as a guardian 
deity, and is now only worshipped in one principal place 
in India, namely, at Pushkar, near Ajmer. He is the 
peculiar patron of the Brahmans, who are regarded as his 
offspring and mouth-piece. The name of his consort is 
Saraswati, once a river goddess, but now worshipped as 
the goddess of speech and learning. 

Vishnu, the second person in the triad, is regarded as 
the upholder and sustainer of life. His name occurs in 
the Veda as a manifestation of the sun, and during the 
Brahmanical period, it rose in popular regard and import- 
ance. He is represented as a dark man, with four arms, 
wearing yellow garments, and riding on Guroor, an ani- 
mal half bird and half man. The name of his consort is 
Lakshmi, or the goddess of prosperity. A popular 
legend affirms that Saraswati, the goddess of learning, 
was also at one time the spouse of Vishnu ; but the ladies 
disagreed, and Vishnu, concluding that one wife was as 
much as even a god could manage, put away the learned 
lady, who thereafter became the consort of Brahma.* 

The religious craving of the people who longed for 

* Garrett's Dictionary. 



56 vedism; or, speculative Hinduism. 

some object of worship more akin to their own nature, fur- 
nished the necessity, and tlieir own epic poems, the Ra- 
mayana and Mahabharata, suppHed the materials for the 
elaboration of the system o{ Avatars or incarnations con- 
nected with this god. Vishnu is represented as having 
repeatedly taken form and appeared on earth to save it 
from threatened disaster, and it is through these avatars, 
that he is chiefly regarded and worshipped. They are as 
follows : 

1. As Matsya, the fish, in which form he saved Manu, 
the progenitor of the human race, in a ship during the 
universal deluge. 

2. As Karma, the tortoise, in which form he planted 
himself at the bottom of the sea of milk, and his back 
thus ser\^ed as a pivot for the mountain Mandara, around 
which the great serpent Vasuki was twisted. Gods and 
demons then stood opposite one another, and using the 
snake as a rope and the mountain as a churning-stick, 
they churned the sea, and obtained fourteen precious 
things — the most precious product, as far as Vishnu him- 
.self was concerned, being the fair Lakhsmi, his future 
spouse. 

3. As Varahay the boar. In this form Vishnu de- 
scended to deliver the world from a powerful demon, 
Hiranyaksha, who had carried it down to the bottom of 
the sea. 

4. As Narha-sinha, the man lion. In this form he 



VEDISM • OR, SPECUL-\TIVE HINDUISM. 57 

destroyed a terrible demon called Hiranya Kashipu, who 
had usurped the dominion o\er the three worlds. 

5. As ]\i}fiiiua, the dwarf. He thus appeared before 
Bali, another demon t}Tant. and meekly solicited as much 
land as he could step in three paces. The demon com- 
plied, when the dwarf, assuming enormous magnitude, 
in two steps strode over heaven and earth, but out of 
compassion left the lower world. Patala, in the demon's 
possession. 

6. As Parasu-rama, Rama with the axe. In this in- 
carnation he cleared the earth of the Kshatriya race 
twent\' times to deliver the Brahmans. 

7. As Rama, the hero of the Ramayana. whose exploits 
have already been ad\erted to. This brave \-oung prince 
is here deified as an incarnation of \'ishnu, and is wor- 
shipped with his wife Sita and his brother Lakshman. 

8. As Kris/uia, " the dark god." This is the favorite 
and most renowned incarnation of Vishnu. Krishna was 
the son of Vasudeva. and was born in the cit}- o( Math- 
ura, whose t\Tant kin^r. Kansa. bein^r forwarned that a 
child of Vasudeva would destroy him, put Vasudeva and 
his wife in prison. When, however. Krishna was born, 
the gods cast the guards of the prison into a deep sleep, 
so that \'asudc\a was enabled to bear the \'oung child 
out and place it in the care of Nanda. a cowherd, whose 
reputed child Krishna grew up to be. Krishna performed 
some mighty exploits when but a child, such as slaying 



58 vedism; or, speculative Hinduism. 

a huge serpent, a demon in the form of a bull, and another 
in the form of a horse. Having incited Nanda and 
the cowherds to abandon the worship of Indra, the god 
of heaven sent down a terrible deluge to avenge himself, 
but Krishna plucked up the mountain Govardhan, and 
using it as an umbrella, shielded his friends from the wrath 
of Indra. 

As a boy he was mischievous and unruly; as a youth, 
he was a profligate. He sported with the gopis, or milk- 
women, who adored him ; his favorite being Radha, who 
is now worshipped with him. He next slew Kansa and 
placed his father on the throne ; but shortly after he left 
Mathura and built the town of Dwarka, in Guzerat. It 
was from here that he went to the help of the Pandavs in 
the great war of the Mahabharata. His harem numbered 
sixteen thousand wives. He is the prince of profligacy, 
cunning and lawlessness. He met his end by a chance 
arrow from the bow of a hunter. Krishna is the most 
popular god of India. His vices are glossed over or 
allegorized by the pandits; but the common people gloat 
over them. He is worshipped in various forms — one of 
the best known being that of Juggernaut in Orissa. It 
is a hideous black stump of wood, with a head upon it. 
Yet beneath the heavy car in which this shapeless mon- 
ster was borne in procession, thousands of infatuated dev- 
otees have sacrificed themselves. 

9. As Buddha. The Brahmans, in their gfreed to effect 



VEDISM ; OR, SPECULATIVE HINDUISM. 59 

a compromise with the Buddhists, adopted Buddha as an 
incarnation of Vishnu. To get over the difficuhy of an 
Avatar of this god being an opponent of idol-worship, 
etc., they maintain that he was incarnated as Buddha on 
purpose to delude demons and wicked men, so as to over- 
whelm them in destruction. 

10. Kalki or Kalkin. This is yet in the future, at the 
end of an age of universal depravity, to award retribution 
to the wicked and recompense to the righteous. 

The third person of the Hindu tri-nmrti is Shiva, the de- 
stroyer and reproducer of nature. He is usually seen 
riding on a bull, which, like him, is generally white. His 
throat is dark blue, because of the poison he is said to have 
drunk at the churning of the sea of milk ; his hair of a light 
reddish hue, thickly matted together. He is sometimes 
seen with two hands, sometimes with four, eight or ten ; 
and with five faces. He has three eyes, one being in the 
centre of his forehead. He holds a trident in his hand ; 
is wrapped round with a tiger skin, wears a necklace of 
skulls, and entwines serpents in his hair. 

He is represented as having attained to the highest 
perfection in austerity and meditation, and is believed, 
even now, to be sitting "on Koilas, an imaginary peak of 
the Himalayas, constantly augmenting his power by 
religious austerities. He is represented as the lord of 
spirits and demons, haunting cemeteries and burying- 
grounds in terrible array. But this dreadful being some- 



6o vedism; or, speculative Hinduism. 

# 

times relaxes, for he is elsewhere represented as Bhola 
Nath, or the Simple Lord, because he is always intoxi- 
cated, and in this condition rolling and rollicking in mad 

frenzy.* 

The Sakti or wife of this terrible god is Durga, a fit- 
ting spouse for such a lord. She has ten arms, each 
filled with terrible weapons. Another favorite form of 
this goddess is that known as Kali. She is represented 
as a very black female with four arms, holding in one a 
scymetar, in the other a gigantic head by the hair. She 
wears two dead bodies for ear-rings and a necklace of 
skulls, while her tongue hangs down to her chin. She 
is represented as drunk with the blood of the giants 
whom she has destroyed ; her eyes are bloodshot, while 
blood is falling in a stream down her breast. 

This is the amiable goddess who is the chief object 
of worship among the inhabitants of Bengal. At her 
shrine, a crimson carnage still distinguishes the sacrifice 
best pleasing to her. 

This terrible third of the Hindu triad is, as may be 
imagined, the personification of irascibility and vindictive- 

* There is no representation of this god so common and so popular, how- 
ever, as the phallic symbol known as the lingam. The origin of this 
abominable worship is unknown, but there are stories in the puranas on 
the subject, which are too vile for reproduction. And yet this scandalous 
image is worshipped by men and women with sui-passing relish everywhere, 
in the open field, on the way side, in temples, from the Himalayas to Cape 
Comorin, and from the mouth of the Ganges to that of the Indus. 



vedism; or, speculative Hinduism. 6i 

ness. On one occasion, being disturbed at his devotion, 
fire darted from his middle eye and consumed the unfor- 
tunate god who had dared to disturb him. In a drunken 
fit, he struck off the head of his son, and when reproached 
by his wife for the act, he replaced it by the head of an 
elephant, — hence Ganesha, the popular god of good luck, 
whose uncouth representation adorns almost every house 
and every shop in India. 

Such is the Hindu tri-imirti, or triad of gods ! As 
before remarked, Brahma is little more than a name ; the 
orthodoxy of modern Hinduism is divided between the 
worship of Vishnu and Shiva. The former are called 
Vaishnavas, the latter Saivas. They write their sectarian 
badges upon their forehead in red, yellow or white 
pigments ; the Vishnu worshippers being distinguished 
by two perpendicular strokes meeting below in a curve, 
while the Saivas mark themselves with three horizontal 
lines. While there are points of contact and lines of 
affinity between these two chief sects, there is enough 
difference to make a radical discord. Each party is in 
possession of legends and fables giving his patron god 
the palm of superiority over the other. This sectarian 
feud is fed by the particular form of religious thought 
and worship, which each professes. The worship of 
Vishnu, through its ^^y^/^rj, professes to bring God down to 
man for his service and worship ; the worship of Shiva, en- 
deavours to raise him by religious austerities to the power 



62 VEDISM ; OR, SPECULATIVE HINDUISM. 

of Deity ; the first is the way of sensuous worship, the 
second of austere and self-denying effort. Hence we find 
that while Vaishnavism is the most popular, Saivism is 
the most powerful, representing as it does the self-deny- 
ing fanaticism of modern Hinduism. 

Beside and below this celebrated tri-jnurti, the Hindu 
pantheon, in its vast assemblage of thirty-three crores of 
gods, furnishes a deity for every want, and every exigency 
of human life. Every season, every month, every day 
has its presiding deity ; every distress, every calamity, 
every ailment has its appropriate protector ; even the 
itch has its god. Indeed, there is no object so mean, so 
ignoble as to be below Hindu worship. Snails and 
serpents, fire and water, sticks and stones, are each and 
all deified and worshipped. Such is the degrading and 
senseless polytheism which Hinduism has reached by 
the law of moral gravitation, notwithstanding its ideal 
creed of One Brahm without a second ! 

But, secondly, what is the Hindu's conception of man's 
own being and nature ? True to his Vedantic belief, he 
maintains that Brahm really exists, and only Brahm. 
The universe is but a form of Brahm. The human body 
is but a temporary envelopment of matter, through which 
the soul exercises thought, consciousness and sensation. 
This envelopment, however, must be dissolved and re- 
erected in some other form, through which the soul must 
pass from, age to age. But what is the Soul— the real 



vedism; or, speculative Hinduism. 63 

man ? It is an emanation of the Divine Spirit, and unto 
Him it must return. The Hindu believes, without quaU- 
fication or reserve, that his inner spirit, that which goes 
from body to body — is the Deity ! The Supreme Spirit 
is individuated by union with particular portions of 
matter, and we call these individuated Souls, men ; they 
are in reality, God himself 

But man is conscious of imperfections, of limitations, 
totally opposed to the idea of his being, in part, the 
Divine Spirit. He is, moreover, conscious of personal 
identity, and personal wholeness. No matter ; these are 
but the effects of the Maya, or illusion with which he is 
enveloped. Indeed, these constitute the source of his 
misery and wretchedness ; let him reject the testimony 
of his consciousness, and recognize the truth ^' Ahaiig 
BraJwi',' I am Brahm, and he is free. 

But if man's soul is Brahm, then all his sins and mis- 
deeds are God's ? However monstrous the proposition, 
it is the logical outcome of the Hindu's position, 
and he does not shrink from it. Brahm is the origin 
and the author of all evil. There is no deed, however 
wicked, but he traces to the Supreme spirit ; he, the in- 
dividuated spirit, is helpless in its environment. 

This being the Hindu's view of his own nature, we 
are prepared for his conception of full and final 
blessedness. Regarding himself as a spark of Divinity, 
imprisoned and incarcerated in an envelopment of matter, 



64 VEDISM ; OR, SPECULATIVE HINDUISM. 

he looks forward with dismay to the almost endless vista 
of births and dissolutions before him. He believes him- 
self fettered to an illusive and changeful existence through 
eighty-four lakhs^ or eighty-four hundred thousand births 
and dissolutions. How many of these are past he does 
not know ; how many yet remain, he cannot conjecture. 
Now he is a man — a Brahman, perhaps ; what was he 
before ? Perhaps a reptile, a flea, a stone, rising in the 
scale of honorable and intelligent being. Or, perhaps, he 
was a king, a demi-god, an inhabitant of heaven for a 
season, but now doomed to disgrace and downfall ! 
Whither is he going ? He does not know ; he may 
ascend, or be degraded still lower. What were his deeds 
and deserts in previous births ? He has no knowledge ; 
yet he sternly believes that their effect for good or for 
evil pursues him inexorably, and cannot be counteracted 
by anything he can do now. 

What is he to do ? Whither is he to escape ? If he 
discharges his duties aright, and lives a life of virtue and 
integrity, he may, unless his goodness be counteracted 
by the evil of his past births, which is quite likely, rise 
to be a king in a future birth. If there, he rule equitably 
and fulfill all his religious duties sacredly, he may in the 
next birth be born in heaven ; he may spend thousands 
of ages there ; but he must again descend and take other 
forms, and reap the full fruit of his actions for good and 
for evil, until the dread appointed tale of births and disso- 



VEDISM ; OR, SPECULATIVE HSNDUISM. 6$ 

lutions is over. No rest of heart, no firm or stable step- 
ping-place for the foot, untilthis interminable tunnel of 
gioom and darkness is crossed. Until! — Millions of 
years must pass, ages upon ages must go by, before this 
darksome passage is traversed. 

This being the Hindu's future, his siinimnin bonujn is 
liberation. And what is liberation ? Release from the 
illusive spell which binds him with fetters inexorable to 
an uncertain and distressing existence, so that the spark 
divine of his individuated soul may ascend to and be 
absorbed in Brahm, the Supreme Spirit. Death of per- 
sonal conscious existence is the Hindu's alternative to 
the positive annihilation of Buddism. And this is his 
full, his final blessedness ! For this he struggles, and 
weeps, and worships ! For this he tortures his body, 
and destroys his sensibilities, and endeavours to make 
his mind and intellect a senseless blank ! This 
end which he believes to be inevitable at the termin- 
ation of the full appointed tale of births and dissolutions, 
he believes, may, nevertheless, be reached by a quicker 
route. The dread " eighty-four " may be sundered, cut 
short ; and the final blessedness of absorption into Brahm 
secured without the necessity of traversing the whole 
dreary course of the dark labyrinth. 

We thus come, lastly, to the means enjoined in the 
Hindu system for attaining to this greatly desired end. 
Strange as it may ^eem, this sammuni bomtm is not at- 



6(i vedism; or, speculative Hinduism. 

tainable by works of merit, or even by a life of goodness 
and virtue. Work, whether good or bad, demands recog- 
nition and recompense, and these only continue the dreary 
round of existence. The soul must get to a position 
beyond working and striving, beyond planning and pur- 
posing, beyond wishing and desiring. Becoming utterly 
insensible to these, dead to the illusive personality of 
being, the soul must rise to recognize its essential iden- 
tity with Brahm. This is to be gained by severe and 
abstracted meditation, under the guidance of a Guru, or 
teacher. Sankaracharya, one of their most renowned 
writers, thus puts it : " The recluse, pondering the 
teacher's words, ' Thou art the Supreme Being,' and re- 
ceiving the text of the Vedas, ' I am God,' having thus 
in three several ways — by the teacher's precept, by the 
word of God, by his own contemplation — persuaded him- 
self * I am God,' obtains liberation." Hence, deliverance 
from ignorance, or true knowledge, is the way leading to 
this much coveted consummation ; and this way is 
accordingly called Gyan-Marg, or the knowledge-way. 

There are thousands of Yogis in India to-day, who, by 
various processes, are seeking this way of knowledge, and 
through it, to liberation and absorption. Living in caves 
and jungles and desert places, renouncing all earthly ties 
and bonds, practicing, if not actually attaining to, com- 
plete deadness to eternal sensibilities and passions, — their 
existence, in its outward aspect at least,' becomes as dead 



VEDISM ; OR, SPECULATIVE HINDUISM. 6/ 

and as complete a blank as this sacred nihilism can re- 
quire. But alas ! for the delusion which enchains them ; 
the tortured and emaciated body, the vacant, wandering 
mind, the persistent self-persuasion of identity with 
Brahm, bring these infatuated devotees no nearer to 
union with the Supreme Spirit. 

This way of deliverance is, of course, not suited to the 
multitude. All cannot become recluses ; the ordinary 
calling and craft of the masses must continue, and this 
way of knowledge is therefore unsuited to them. Another 
way, therefore, has been devised for the common herd, 
which, although tortuous and uncertain, conduces, the 
Brahmans say, to the same end. This is the way of 
works or Karma Marg. A strict observance of caste 
requirements, obedience and gifts to the Brahmans, and 
worship of the gods with all its parade and paraphernalia, 
constitute the main features of this way of works devised 
for the multitude. 

As to caste, the original four have been divided and 
subdivided into an infinitesimal labyrinth of distinctions. 
The old rigor and jealousy, too, with which those distinc- 
tions were maintained, have, in many particulars given way 
before the advance of broad and progressive culture. 
The Brahman and the Sudra rub shoulders together in 
the same street and steam car ; sit upon the same bench 
and look out of the same book in school and madrassa ; 
and refresh themselves with ice manufactured from water 



6S VEDISM ; OR, SPECULATIVE HINDUISM. 

and other compounds by low caste men, or worse, the 
Europeans. Still, for each of these violations of caste 
rigidity, some sacred excuse is devised; and the old restric- 
tions with regard to intercourse between the several castes 
are still strictly enforced. To use the just and forcible 
words of the l7zdo Prakctsh, a native reforming journal, 
this caste system "cripples the independent action of 
individuals, sows the seed of bitter discord between the 
different sections of society, encourages to most abomin- 
able practices, and dries up all the springs of that social, 
moral and intellectual freedom which alone can secure 
greatness, whether to individuals or nations." The law 
of caste supersedes the law of conscience, and a man may 
cheat, thieve or lie without social or religious penalties, 
while a breach of caste rule would at once put upon him 
the terrible ban of ostracisation from his own family and 
kindred, and excommunication from every religious right 
and privilege. 

Homage to the Brahmans is another sacred duty. 
At every domestic incident, birth, marriage or death; 
at every mela and worshipping shrine ; at every 
eclipse, lunar and solar, and at all the appointed feast 
days, which are legion, there must be a special feeing of this 
sacred class. Besides this, there are hungry strolling 
Brahmans by the hundreds, who have only to pass along 
the streets and shops, striking their greedy belly 
with, their palms, and uttering the well-known cry — 



VEDISM ; OR, SPECULATIVE HINDUISM. 69 

'' BraJiniaii hai ! '^ to exact their customary tribute. In 
addition to all this again, there is not a well-to-do Hindu 
but has his religious teacher or Guru, and the homage 
paid to such teacher is only surpassed by the greedy 
rapacity of the Guru himself. This Guru is often re- 
garded by the poor Hindu as his particular deity, and is 
worshipped and adored as a substitute for the gods them- 
selves. Of course, he is not slack in pursuing his claims, 
and the religious Hindu is bound to do his utmost to 
gratify his every wish. 

The worship of the gods is of course an urgent 
requirement. The common people know very little of 
the gods themselves ; their little scrap of information is 
picked up from the fragments of the great Epic poems 
which are sung or chanted by the Brahmans. Mahadeo, 
or Shiva, — under the vile representation of the lingam, 
Kris/ma, the lewd Apollo of Hinduism, Rama Chandra, 
the mythical king of Ayodhya, and GancsJia, the elephant- 
headed son of Shiva, are the favorite gods of the multitude. 
Among the goddesses, Lakshini, the spouse of Vishnu, 
^and the bloody Durga or Kali, and Radha, the adulter- 
ous companion of Krishna a;*e chiefly worshipped. In 
temples^ in groves, by the river side, the multitudes pros- 
trate themselves, offer their oblations and go their way. 
There are particular shrines and worshipping places, 
which must be visited at particular seasons. 

The rudest representations are chosen for worship; 



yO VEDISM ; OR, SPECULATIVE HINDUISM. 

among the numberless idols of the Hindus, there is not 
one distinguished for grace or symmetry of form. Often, 
but a block of stone is taken, set up under a tree, anointed 
with Vermillion and adopted as the Deity. 

What is the particular view taken by the worshipper 
of the idol before which he bows ? The learned view it 
as a symbol and a reminder of the Deity ; the mystical, as 
containing, through the charms and invocations offered, the 
spiritual presence of the god represented ; but the ignor- 
ant multitude regard the idol as really and truly God. 

The repetition of the name of a god is considered an 
acceptable and important form of worship. Hence the 
religious Hindu will employ the name of Rama as often 
as possible in his ordinary conversation. His usual salu- 
tation is "Rama! Rama!" He expresses his amaze- 
ment, his disgust, with "Rama! Rama!" If he yawn 
or sneeze, he will repeat Rama's name ; if at leisure, 
with nothing to occupy him, he will dreamily roll his 
beads and repeat this name. It is not at all necessary 
that he should think upon his god, as he repeats his 
name, or even that he should be consciously intelligent 
of the exercise. It is the sound of the name, not the 
sincerity or purpose of the worshipper, which gives 
potency to the exercise. A Bhil,* we are told, unwittingly 
killed a Brahman, and was instructed to constantly repeat 
the word Mara (dead) as an expiation for this grave 

* A tribe of Mountain robbers. 



VEDISM ; OR, SPECULATIVE HINDUISM. 7I 

offence. He did so for years, the syllable Mara, 
Mara, repeated rapidly, forming the powerful invocation 
Rama ! Rama ! Vishnu, accordingly, appeared to the 
man, and granted him enlightenment, so that he became 
the well-known Brahman Valmiki, the author of the 
Ramayana. 

One of the most degrading results of this idol worship 
has been the formation of secret sects or societies, called 
Vamacdrins, or left-hand worshippers. These societies 
devote themselves to the worship of the female counter- 
parts of the deities, or Saktis, and hence are known as 
Sdktas. The religious ceremonies of this class of per- 
sons are performed at night, in secret. At these mid- 
night orgies, men and women unite ; the restraints of 
caste are for the time laid aside, and lust and sensuality 
reign supreme in the sacred name of religion. So utterly 
vile are these religious exercises that it is verily " a shame 
to speak of the things w^hich are done by them in secret." 
Thus by means the most contrary, — the deadening of 
bodily appetites and passions, and their most brutal grati- 
fication, — the infatuated Hindu aims at liberation from 
the coils of a burdensome existence ; if haply, by some 
means, his luckless life might be lost in eternal oblivion ! 

Such is a cursory view of Hinduism, as a system ; a 
plunge downward, with ever -increasing momentum, 
through the centuries, on the downgrade of moral gravi- 
tation ! Have none arisen to stay the sliding, to stem 



72 VEDISM ; OR, SPECULATIVE HINDUISM. 

the torrent of degradation and ignorance? Yes, reform- 
ers have appeared and protested against various phases 
of the great evil ; they have attracted disciples, lived their 
brief span and died. Some of the sects thus formed con- 
tinue to this day, but their influence is powerless against 
the mammoth superstition of Hinduism. The fact is, 
they are themselves blighted with its deadly breath, and 
must in the end succumb to its power. 

The most powerful protest offered in late years to the 
pretensions of this gigantic superstition has been by the 
Brahmos, or members of the theistical societies organized 
chiefly in Bengal. This movement was organized in 
1 8 14, by the well-known Brahman, Raja Ram Mohun 
Roy. He contended for the abolition of Sati, and for 
the promotion of education ; and preached a pure mono- 
theism as founded upon the Vedas. Upon his decease, 
the movement was carried forward by leaders of ability 
and courage, making broader and bolder sweeps of 
reformation, until, under the late Keshub Chunder Sen, 
the last vestige of caste restrictions and veneration for 
the Vedanta, were thrown over. The result was a belief 
in the " fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man- 
kind." As might be expected from a creed so broad 
and vague, the most erratic conceptions have mingled 
with their profession and worship. Still the Brahmo 
Somaj, with all its divisions and vagaries, is a standing 
protest against polytheism, caste and sacerdotalism ; and 



VEDISM ; OR, SPECULATIVE HINDUISM. 73 

many who have toiled and prayed for the regeneration 
of India have turned their eye hopefully to what promised 
to be a vestibule into the sanctuary of Christian faith and 
rest. Bfahinoisni, however, as a ruling factor in the 
religious life of the nation, can exert but an ephemeral 
influence : it lacks the stability of an authoritative reve- 
lation, the inspiration of a living embodiment ! 

From the above sketch, it will appear that the old 
Indo Aryan race, after a busy round of forty centuries, 
with their panoramic exhibition of pantheism, polytheism 
and fetichism, are looking to-day, as they did then, 
toward the One Great, Supreme Spirit ! The circle ends 
where it began, although its diameter covers four thous- 
and years. Through all these changes of creed and pro- 
fession, though all these religious and ceremonial manipu- 
lations, there throbs the desire to know God ! With eyes 
blindfold, yet with hands outstretched in anxious search, 
the nation gropes after God ! Oh ! what a horror of dark- 
ness, — a darkness that may be felt, — yet from that dark- 
ness there comes the wild cry for help. 

The ground is crumbling on every side. Broad gaps and 
deep fissures shake the heavy edifice to its foundation. 
Its interior is honeycombed with its own corruption ; 
administrative and political reforms with pick and spade 
of advancing culture have dug about its basement ; secular 
and religious education have mined the foundations, while 
active evangelistic effort has torn away many a bold ramp- 
4 



74 vedism; or, speculative Hinduism. 

art and demolished many an overhanging balcony. The 
hoary edifice of Hinduism must fall, and the absorbing, 
resounding question is not when, but whither ? Shall 
it splash into the dark, seething waters of religious nihil- 
ism which gape at its feet ? The engines of destruction 
are surely and steadily at work. Shaken from the moor- 
ings of their ancient faith, from their traditional customs, 
shall the millions of India be given over to a Saharan 
scepticism, whose dust is blindness, whose sunbeams are 
death? 

Hasten to the rescue, ye men and women of God ! A 
mighty crisis is at hand ; a great nation is to be led forth 
from a captivity worse than Egypt's ; the gates of brass 
are already bursting asunder, and the command waits to 
be given "Go forth!" But a roaring sea, the Red Sea 
of sceptical soul-carnage, rages before, threatening to 
engulph them. Oh for the Moseses of faith and devo- 
tion to lead this downtrodden nation into the land of rest 
and plenty ! Oh ! for the Aarons of holy fervor and 
sanctity to go before, while the waters part in twain, and 
the redeemed of India go forth, dry-shod, into the Canaan 
of Christian life and liberty! Oh for the joyful and tri- 
umphant Miriams to " sound the loud timbrel " in token 
of eternal salvation and victory ! Ah ! 

" Who will answer, quickly saying, 
Here am I, send me, send me! " 



III. 

GANGA MAI; 



OR, 



Practical Hinduism. 



Traditional religion is the product of numerous and 
diverse elements. The history of a country, — its myths 
and legends, its facts and fiction ; — the social customs of 
the people, their habits and manner, their forms and fash- 
ions ; — the political contour of the government, its rights 
and restraints, its preserves and penalties, — all contribute 
to mould the religious belief and practice of the people. 
Nay, more ; the physical features of the country' — its 
geography, geology, archaeology, — all go to make up the 
sum total of its traditional theology. 

Hinduism, so far from being an exception to this rule, 
is, from its cloud-wreathed antiquity, the best exemplifi- 
cation of it. As a system of religious belief, — so pro- 
found, so puerile ; so vast, so contracted ; so abstruse, so 
absurd, — it is inexplicable save as the total product of 
the life-issue of a nation, second to no other in age and 

* Literally, Ganges Mother. 

75 



76 PRACTICAL HINDUISM. 

adventure. To fathom the depths of this turbid sea you 
must dredge sand and silt, sound rock and reef; nay, strain 
even the froth and foam which dance on its billows. 
Partial and one-sided views are easily taken and tena- 
ciously maintained, but they are caricatures at best of the 
whole truth. Here is one who lauds Brahmanical moral- 
ity and virtue to the skies ; here is another who discounts 
the entire system of its ethical teaching ! Here is one 
who sees nothing but depths of profundity and heights 
of sublimity in Hindu philosophy ; here is another who 
is unable to detect a grain of sound wisdom in the slush 
of its absurdity. Macaulay pronounces it '' of all super- 
stitions the most irrational, the most inelegant and the 
most immoral." * Ballantyne characterizes it as " a calm, 
clear, collected exposition of principles." f Who is right, 
Macaulay or Ballantyne ? Neither ; both. Neither wholly ; 
both partially. And the reason is obvious. Hinduism 
is the commixture, — not the commingling — of diverse 
features of thought ; it i3 a mosaic of different hues, some 
of them totally inharmonious and unblending ; and the 
selection of one or a few favorite colors, with the warm- 
est and truest expatiation of their qualities, cannot cor- 
rectly represent the whole. 

Thus, in order to get a fairly accurate view of Hinduism 
as a practical religious system, it is infinitely better to 

* Speech on the Gates of Somnauth. 
t " Bible for the Pundits." 



PRACTICAL HINDUISM. J J 

take into view some phase of its actual working, than to 
pick out one or more abstract features of its poHcy or 
philosophy, and descant upon their merits or demerits. 
In this cake of many and diverse compounds, if we 
would have a fairly correct view of the whole, — better 
slice off a clear cut from end to end, no matter how 
rough and jagged the cut, than to pick out a few of the 
ingredients according to fancy or taste, and then smack 
the lips or wry our mouth, as they may affect our palate. 

Such a specimen slice of practical Hinduism we pro- 
pose to serve up in the muddy platter of the Ganga 
River bed. Muddy, indeed, and bedaubed with the pud- 
dle and slush of ages, — yet laden with sacred interest as 
the object of hope and adoration to five thousand genera- 
tions of a nation leading the van in philosophy and 
culture, when the world around was buried in dark- 
ness. 

Mighty Ganga ! An overwhelming awe chains the 
senses and holds the mind in speechless subjugation, 
as we traverse the dazzling heights of the Himalayan 
mountain chain, in search of tha first springs of its sacred 
waters. Attaining an elevation of 14,000 feet above sea 
level, we face the world of glaciers, with its interminable 
barriers of eternal snow. Oak and cedar have long since 
disappeared ; pines have grown scarce; only white birch, 
silver firs and dwarf rhododendrons occupy the dark 
patches of mountain rock not covered by glistening snow. 



yS PRACTICAL HINDUISM. 

A deep gorge or valley with precipitous walls of almost 
vertical rock lies before us ; it is the bed of the sacred 
stream. Glancing above the valley, seventeen mountain 
peaks, draped in dazzling white to their very base, pierce 
the heavens, the lowest exceeding 20,000 feet in elevation. 
Most conspicuous among these, from their colossal pro- 
portions, are the five peaks of the mighty Samero 
Purbut of Rudru Himaleh, enclosing a sort of semi- 
circular amphitheatre filled with snow, where Mahadeo * 
(the Great god) sits enthroned in supreme majesty, sur- 
rounded by clouds and mists, and wastes of impassable 
snow. 

Ascending the valley or gorge, we come at length upon 
a huge embankment of frozen snow, 200 feet high per- 
pendicularly, extending right across the valley, here nearly 
three-quarters of a mile broad. At the base of this 
glacier, is a tunnel-like chasm, or low arch, called the 
Cow's Mouth, through which the Ganga issues forth, with 
a width of thirty feet and a depth of from one to three 
feet. This is commonly regarded as the source of the 
Ganga, but as the stream is here already a full and 
rapidly flowing river, we are disposed to search farther up 
for the mysterious first-springs of the sacred stream. 

Climbing up this huge glacier which gradually slopes 
upward towards the snow-clad mountains beyond, we 
find its surface ridged by deep and serried hollows, filled 
* A name of Shiva, the thu'd in the Hindu triad. 



PRACTICAL HINDUISM. 



79 



in places with clear, pellucid water more than a hundred 
yards deep. Fantastic peaks and pinnacles of translucent 
ice uprise here and there, reflecting beautiful prismatic 
colors under the bright rays of the sun. All around, the 
horizon is bounded by a continuous unbroken barrier of 
snowy ridges, crowned by towering peaks and majestic 
summits. " Here seasons never change : unbroken win- 
ter ever reigns." 

But look upward towards the head of the glacier. Is 
that Niagara instantaneously frozen before us ? It must 
be; yet, no, — for it is infinitely grander, more sublime, 
more stupendous ! A tremendous cataract, raging, writh- 
ing, foaming, suddenly caught and transfixed in frozen 
snow. What a spectacle. Above, around, beneath, the 
solemnity of an awful and preternatural solitude reigns ! 
In this majestic cathedral, of snowy aisles and granite 
columns, and canopy of deep cerulean firmament, one 
Presence reigns supreme, and we instinctively exclaim, 
with Coleridge : 

Ye ice-falls ! ye that from the mountain's brow 
Adown enormous ravines slope amain, — 
Ton-ents, methinks, that heard a mighty voice, 
And stopped at once amidst their maddest plunge ! 
Motionless torrents ! Silent cataracts ! 
Who made you glorious as the gate of heaven 
Beneath the keen full moon ? Who bade the sun 
Clothe you with rainbows ? Who with living flowers 
Of loveliest blue, spread garlands at your feet ? 
God ! Let the torrents, like a shout of nations 
Answer ! and let the ice-plains echo, God ! 



8o PRACTICAL HINDUISM. 

And now, looking down, behold an immense longitu- 
dinal chasm in the glacier upon which we stand. In some 
places, this chasm is completely arched over with solid 
ice ; in others it appears to have been closed or bridged 
by blocks having fallen in from above. Peering down 
into this glassy chamber, you may see clusters of gigantic 
icicles exceeding fifty feet in length, hanging from the 
underfaces of the walls on either side, while stalactites 
of translucent ice, like massive pillars, support the crystal 
vault. Deep down in this chasm, glides, weird-like, the 
slender rill which swells hereafter into the full tide of the 
mighty Ganga,"^ with rush and roar and loud reverbera- 
tion ; tumbling, tossing, laughing, sighing, the swift cur- 
rent makes haste to quit its icy bed for the genial sun- 
warmth below. On, on, — though but a baby rill as yet, 
— to water and fertilize half a continent swarming with 
population ; to become the main artery of commerce and 
navigation to the country, until upon its waters rides a 
mine of wealth computed annually at twelve million 
pounds sterling; to wash the feet of scores of populous 
cities ; to receive the incense of praise and adoration 
from millions of devoted votaries ; and to bear down to 
the ocean, after a winding length of 1500 miles, not only 
enough sand and silt in a year to build sixty Great 
Pyramids, but the heavier, fouler burden of a vast and 
by no means too virtuous nation's sins and shortcomings. 

* Taken chiefly from the graphic Author of " Forest and Field." 



PRACTICAL HINDUISM. 8 1 

At this awful and inaccessible height but few pilgrims 
venture. The place is too sacred for mortal tread. 
Here, according to current tradition, Himavat, the god of 
the mountains, dwells. In these misty wastes, the mighty- 
Shiva or Mahadeo practiced those terrible austerities, 
which raised him to such power in the scale of god- 
head. Here Durga or Parvati, the daughter of Himavat, 
— enamoured of Shiva, laid siege to his heart. But she 
found it no easy matter to captivate the devout Shiva, 
who continued absorbed in his devotions regardless of the 
charms of the fair wooer. Himavat, her father, obtained 
Shiva's consent to his daughter's waiting on him while at 
his devotion, in the hope that he might be thus overcome ; 
but this plan failed. The stern Shiva was proof against all 
her offices and services of love. Then Kandarpa, the god 
of love, undertook her cause ; and watching his oppor- 
tunity, while Shiva opened his eyes from his meditation 
to receive an offering of flowers and a necklace from 
Parvati, he let fly his arrow straight at the mighty deity. 
Though smitten, Shiva, in majestic anger, darted one look 
at Kandarpa, when fire issued from the third eye in the 
middle of Shiva's forehead and reduced Kandarpa to 
ashes ! The enraged deity left the place for another 
forest, and Parvati desparing of success, returned home 
full of sorrow ! 

But she was not to be defeated : she would try what 
religious austerities would do in winning the stern god's 

F 



82 PRACTICAL HINDUISM. 

love. And now, in the mist and upon the mountains, 
through clouds and snow, behold her engaging in a 
course of religious performances, whose terrible rigor 
fairly alarmed her mother. But she persevered, deter- 
mined to conquer, until Shiva, overcome and vanquished, 
appeared to her and yielded to her overtures. But 
what a husband had she won ! Three-eyed, toothless, 
clad in a tiger's skin, encircled with snakes, girdled with 
skulls, riding on a wild bull ! Alas ! if ever love was 
blind, it was here: Yet married they were, Shiva and 
Parvati, in these mountain-wastes, to the wonderment of 
the entire celestial court. Yet, it would appear that the 
three-eyed deity did not make so good a bargain after 
all, for Parvati turned out to be a veritable shrew and 
vexed her husband with strifes and jealousies ; so that 
to-day she is represented as standing with one foot upon 
her husband's breast, who lies prostrate upon the ground 
at her feet. 

Passing by the dizzy theatre of these god-like scenes, 
we descend to Gangoutri, a few miles below the Cow's 
Mouth, where the famous shrine of Ganga's abode attracts 
the Hindu pilgrim. Scarped, overhanging cliffs, fringed 
with dark pines and splintered crags, tower up on every 
side, while through dark rifts and narrow chasms, the 
sacred stream forces its passage in a succession of rapids 
at certain places more than three hundred feet deep. On 
each side of this precipitous channel is a slope, varying 



PRACTICAL HINDUISM. 3^ 

from a hundred yards to half a mile in breadth, well 
wooded with pine and cedar, whilst above this again rise 
steep lateral cliffs, fringed with pine and birch, for the 
most part covered with snow. 

On the right bank, about fifteen feet above the stream, 
upon a slab of rock (held sacred as the spot upon which 
Ganga used to worship Mahadeo or Shiva) is a small 
unpretending square pagoda, with melon-shaped roof, 
scarcely twelve feet high, surrounded by a low wall of 
unhewn stone. This insignificant-looking edifice is the 
celebrated temple of Gangoutri, one of the most revered 
shrines of Hindu worship, being universally regarded as 
the actual abode of the goddess Ganga. On entering the 
little courtyard, paved with smooth stones from the bed of 
the river, another small temple may be seen, dedicated to 
Byramji. In the sides of the rocks, numerous caves 
have been excavated for the use of the pilgrims. In the 
great temple itself, little is to be seen, — the supreme 
object of adoration being a small silver image of the 
goddess herself, before which a few oil lamps are con- 
stantly kept burning. 

This place, though superlatively sacred, is, from its 
inaccessibility, visited by few pilgrims. There are those, 
however, who have vowed to make a pilgrimage from 
source to end of the sacred stream, and they may be 
seen here starting on their weary round. Others are 
visiting this sacred shrine from the plains of India, bear- 



I* 



84 PRACTICAL HINDUISM. 

ing away with them the precious freight of the waters of 
the sacred stream. Fatigue and cold and poverty sadly 
strip the ranks of the infatuated devotees, and many sink 
to rise no more. Yet the shout rings jubilantly from 
those who survive, ''Ganga Mai ki jai!" as, shouldering 
their burdens, they trudge down the mountains, weary and 
footsore, yet exultant that an important duty has been 
fulfilled ! 

But what or who is the Ganga, and why is she so ferv- 
ently adored ? 

The goddess Ganga, we are told, is another daughter 
of the mountain-god Himavat, and therefore the sister of 
Parvati, the spouse of Shiva. In heaven, where she 
cleanses away the sins of the gods, she is known as 
Mundakinee. Her descent to earth was in this wise : A 
certain king of Ayodhya, (Oudh) Sagara, having no 
children, entered upon a long course of austere devotions, 
as a reward for which the gods promised him sixty 
thousand sons from one of his wives, and one son from 
the other. After some time his queen presented him 
with a pumpkin, which the king, in anger, dashed to the 
ground, when out sprang the promised progeny. His 
other queen presented him with one son, named Angshii- 
man. After these sons were grown up, King Sagara 
resolved once more to perform the sacrifice of a horse 
before his death, and committed the victim to the care of 
his sixty thousand sons. Now the person who performs 



PRACTICAL HINDUISM. 85 

this sacrifice one hundred times succeeds to the throne of 
heaven ; this being Sagara's hundredth sacrifice, Indra, 
the reigning sovereign of heaven, being alarmed at the 
thought of losing his throne, carried off the horse into 
the lower regions, and fastened it near to Kapila, a 
devout sage. Sagara commanded his sons to go in 
search of the chosen sacrifice. They, failing to find it 
on the earth, dug down to Patala, where they found the 
horse standing by the side of Kapila, who was absorbed 
in his devotions. They, supposing him to be the. thief, 
rated him soundly, when the sage, losing his moral equi- 
poise, in anger, reduced them all to ashes. 

The king sent his son Angshuman to seek for his lost 
brothers. He found their ashes, and the horse feeding 
near them. Unable to find water to pour upon their 
ashes so that they might ascend to heaven, Kapila 
directed him now to take the horse and complete his 
father's sacrifice, assuring him that his (Angshuman's) 
grandson should in due course obtain for their ashes the 
heavenly Ganga. Sagara reigned thirty thousand years ; 
Angshuman, thirty-two thousand; his son Dilipa, thirty 
thousand ; all these continued in the practice of the most 
rigorous austerities for the promised boon, but without 
success. 

Bhagiratha, Dilipa'a son, earnestly sought the same 
boon, and after one thousand years, Bramha signified his 
pleasure by commanding him to ask a boon. Bhagiratha 



S6 PRACTICAL HINDUISM. 

begged that he might receive the celestial Ganga, that 
the ashes of his relatives, being wetted by her waters, 
they might ascend to heaven. The prayer was granted ; 
the mighty goddess descended in an overwhelming flood, 
which — to prevent the earth being wholly washed away — 
was caught by the great god Shiva in the coils of his hair, 
whence it was discharged in several streams upon the 
earth. Thence it descended into Patala, washed the 
ashes of Sagara's sons, who being delivered from the 
curse, ascended in chariots to heaven. 

Thus brought down to earth, she continues to stay, to 
wash away the sins of her worshipers, and to procure 
them admission into heaven. Her waters have the most 
wondrous efficacy. The Ganga Vakya Vali thus 
describes her sanctity and power : *' By bathing in 
Ganga, accompanied with prayer, a person will remove 
at once the sins of thousands of births. If a person who 
has been guilty of killing cows, bramhans,* his guru,t etc. 
(the most heinous sins in the Hindu's estimation), touch 
the waters of Ganga, desiring in his mind the remission 
of these sins, they will be forgiven." But, more wonder- 
ful still, — " If a person, according to the regulations of 
the Shastra, be going to bathe in the Ganga, and die on 
the road, he shall obtain the same benefits as though he 
had actually bathed." Nay, further, "at the time of 
death, if a person think upon Ganga, he will obtain a 

* The sacred priestly caste. •}- A religious teacher. 



PRACTICAL HINDUISM. 8/ 

place in the heaven of Shiva;" but still further, — "He 
who thinks upon Ganga, though he may be eight hundred 
miles distant from the river at the time, is delivered from 
all sin, and is entitled to heaven." * 

With such credentials it is no wonder that this god- 
dess should be so intensely reverenced. Journeys of five 
or six months are undertaken b)^ pilgrims to bathe in its 
sacred waters, to perform the rites for deceased relatives, 
or to carry its water to their homes for religious and 
medicinal purposes. The water of this river is used in 
English courts of justice to swear witnesses upon, 
although sometimes a respectable Hindu will refuse to 
take oath on this water for its very sacredness. The 
utmost anxiety is cherished, and pains employed to die 
by the banks of the Ganga, and the vilest opprobrium is 
cast upon those who choose to die in their homes. 
Should a person die at a distance from the sacred river, 
his relations procure a bone at the time of burning the 
body, and at some future time commit the bone to the 
Ganga, in the hope of securing his salvation. This 
custom is endorsed by the following sacred story : 
A bramhan, guilty of the greatest crimes, was devoured 
by wild beasts ; his bones only remained. A crow 
took up one of these bones, and, carrying it over 
Ganga, accidentally let it drop in the sacred waters. As 
soon as the bone touched Ganga, the bramhan sprang 

* Ward's Views of the Hindus, p. i66. Note. 



88 PRACTICAL HINDUISM. 

to life, and was ascending to heaven, when the messenger 
of Yama, the judge of the dead, seized him as a great 
sinner. Vishnu decided, however, that as his bone had 
touched Ganga, his sins were all washed away, and to 
heaven he went accordingly. 

This wondrous efficacy of the Ganga, indeed, provoked 
a complaint from Yama, the punisher of the wicked. He 
appealed to the gods that his work was well-nigh ended, 
since the most sinful persons, through her cleansing, 
ascended to. heaven, and his officers were therefore ready 
to give up their places in disgust. Indra, the god of 
heaven, advised him, however, not to place his messengers 
in any situation where the wind, passing over Ganga, 
blew, since all persons touched even by the wind of this 
sacred river, had all their sins removed and would go to 
heaven.* 

Descending the sacred channel, we leave behind the 
mountains with their precipitous torrents and foammg 
cascades, and arrive at the place where the Ganga enters 
upon the great plain of Hindustan, at an elevation of 
only 1 ,024 feet above the sea. This place is called Ganga- 
dwara (the door of Ganga), or more commonly Haridwar 
(the door of Hari or Vishnu). This spot is celebrated 
as the scene of the great sacrifice offered by Daksha, one 
of the seven progenitors of mankind, born from the 
thumb of Bramha. Daksha's daughter, Sati, was married 

* Ward's View, p. 48. 




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PRACTICAL HINDUISM. 89 

to the mighty god Shiva, but Daksha, being offended with 
his son-in-law, omitted to invite him and his wife to the 
sacrifice. Sati, however, insisted upon going ; on her 
arrival, the irascible old patriarch poured such a torrent 
of abuse upon his son-in-law, Shiva, that she, utterly 
overcome, threw herself into the flames of the sacrifice 
and perished. Upon this, Shiva, exasperated, tore off a 
lock of his hair and cast it with violence to the ground. 
Up sprang therefrom a mighty giant, of the name of 
Virabhadra, with a thousand hands, whom Shiva sent to 
destroy the sacrifice. A tremendous rout ensued ; the 
furious giant laid about him right and left, pummelling 
the gods, maiming one, cutting off the nose of another, 
knocking in the teeth of a third, trampling others under 
foot, and worst of all, cutting Daksha's head off The 
gods complained to Brahma of this rough treatment, 
whereupon he hastened to Shiva to intercede for Daksha. 
Shiva then went personally to the scene of disorder, and 
resuscitated Daksha, but as his head could not be found, 
a goat's head was clapped on instead. This sacrifice of 
Daksha, and the subsequent contest, are perpetuated in 
Hindu sculpture, and make conspicuous figures both 
at Elephanta and EUora.* 

Haridwar is a shrine of peculiar sanctity, and is 
throughout th^ year visited by throngs of pilgrims. The 
town itself is inconsiderable, but at the time of .the vernal 

* Garrett's Classical Dictionaiy of India, p. 147. 



90 PRACTICAL HINDUISM. 

equinox, a religious fair, the largest in India, is here 
held. Pilgrims and dealers in all kinds of merchandise 
assemble from Cabul, Cashmere, Nepal, the Panjab, and 
even from Tartary. It is estimated that no less than 
two millions of human beings congregate at this spot 
annually ; while every twelfth year, a still more celebrated 
Mela is held, at which the concourse is proportionally 
larger. While multitudes of pilgrims gather for religious 
purposes, thousands come for merchandise only. The 
imports are in horses, cattle and camels, Persian dried 
fruits, shawls, cloths, drugs, etc.; the returns are made 
in cotton, piece-goods, indigo, sugar, spices and other 
tropical productions. Thus religion, social intercourse 
and sharp-driving commerce pursue their occupations 
together ; and — what wonder if they encroach one upon 
the other, so that while trade is glossed over with super- 
stition, devotion is secularized, and both are drenched 
with social immorality and vice. 

But come, let us walk through the mela, and see 
what engages this mighty throng. The chief ingredients 
, are crowd, dust, and noise. You can scarcely elbow your 
way along for the crowd, see before you for the dust, or 
hear articulate sounds for the noise. Still we persevere, and 
pushing right and left, we discern the booths or huts of the 
pilgrims. Rough and narrow structures of grass afford 
scant but welcome shelter to the crowd. There are tents, 
however, for the better class, while not a few gorgeously 



PRACTICAL HINDUISM. 



91 



colored pavilions are reserved for the wealthy, among 
whom are rich Thakurs"^ and titled Rajas.f Thousands 
of the poorest, however, have no shelter at all ; they lie 
stretched upon the ground, huddled together in gangs 
and groups, with the sun to warm them by day and the 
stars to light them by night. The streets are lined with 
gay and sparkling shops, extemporized for the occasion 
with canvas awnings, in which every description of goods 
are exposed for sale. Cloths, vessels of copper and 
brass, grain products, brocades, tinsels and nick-nacks of 
a thousand kinds are arranged in tempting array. Each 
shop is literally besieged, seller and customer vieing one 
with the other as to who shall drive the sharpest bargain, 
while scores of loungers look on with intense interest, 
chattering, laughing, scolding, vociferating in the liveliest 
manner. Here is a Haiwcii, with a tempting array of curi- 
ously formed sweetmeats on brass platters, and a smoking 
oven at which a half-dozen of semi-nude assistants, with 
dirty and greasy persons, are busy turning out fried hand- 
cakes, which are no sooner served out than caught up by 
hungry customers. There is a large booth or shed in 
which, upon an elevated stand or dais, sit a number of 
Brahmans, one of whom is vociferously reciting some 
portion of the Ramayana to hundreds of listeners squat- 
ted before him, who testify their approval by nod and 
shake and loud acclaim, while others toss over copper 

* Land holders. t Native princes. 



92 PRACTICAL HINDUISM. 

and silver coin, or grain or fruit to the stout-lunged clergy, 
until the carpet before them is covered with the spoil. In 
another tent, a band of singers, with saidngi'^ and dholaky^ 
are entertaining another crowd, and ekcing out a scant 
subsistence. On the outskirts are sheds for horses, cattle, 
camels and even elephants, which are here traded away 
for specie or a fair equivalent of other goods. 

But, step aside for a moment, and let this gaudy and 
vociferous pageant pass by. You hear the most discord- 
ant notes on horn and cracked trombone, and, utterly 
bewildered, step in the first booth or shop to see what is 
passing. Here is an outrider on a camel, beating a pair 
of drums with might and main ; then another camel 
bearing an important-looking functionary, busy scattering 
cownes\2Sidi zom.X.o the surrounding throng ; then some 
tinselled rag-tag and bob-tail on gaunt and bony horses ; 
then the hero of the occasion, a lordly Raja perchance, 
richly attired and riding a heavy horse which goes wad- 
dling along, evidently proud of its burden. The proces- 
sion closes with some more rag-tag and bob-tail ; and 
then — all has swept past, but the dust and the clamorous 
beggars. These last push and jostle, and cry and clamor 
over the spoils received or missed, — pronouncing the 
Raja a prince of generosity or a skin-flint, according to 
the gain made, in language more forcible than elegant. 
Indeed, look where you will, these clamorous beggars 

* Fiddle. | Small drum. \ Shells. 



PRACTICAL HINDUISM. 93 

abound, not only the maimed and lame, the blind and 
halt, but vast throngs of men and women and wholly- 
naked children, who dog your steps, oppose your advance, 
tread on your heels, begging, crying, clamoring all the 
while, until dazed and deafened, you are content to Deat 
a retreat from the busy thoroughfare, and turn aside to 
the more retired quarter where the religious devotees or 
fakirs ply their trade and practice their austerities. 

What a sight ! Here is a group of Siinyasis, with 
cow-dwng ash rubbed over their naked bodies, a narrow 
cloth round their loins, with great coils of artificial hair 
matted above their heads, clotted with dirt, sitting 
between blazing fires. Here is the KJialaiita-yogi with 
artificial snakes fastened round his forehead, strings of 
human bones round his neck, covered over with a tiger 
skin and face smeared with ashes. There sits a Mouni, 
fulfilling his vow of perpetual silence, almost naked, 
refusing all efforts to engage him in converse; and further 
on a Parainhangsa, perfectly nude, with hair and beard 
and nails grown like those of a wild animal, seemingly 
regardless of everything around. Yonder, again, is the 
Ui'dii-Vahu, who, to fulfil a vow to Vishnu, has held up 
his right arm so long that it has become stiff, rigid and 
immovable. There is another lying upon a bed of spikes, 
another standing on his head, and yet a third buried 
under ground so completely that but for a minute open- 
ing in the earth, over which the dust gently swells and 



Q^ PRACTICAL HINDUISM. 

falls, you would suspect no living person below. But, 
what is more disgusting than all, here is the Aghor 
panthi, almost naked, carrying in the left hand a human 
skull, containing urine and ordure, and a pan of burning 
coals in his right. If the alms, which he claims as a 
right, are not given at once, he will threaten to eat his 
foul meal there and then before the people. 

Such are the religious devotees or fakirs. Each has 
his disciples and followers, and round each throngs of 
admiring pilgrims gather, while not a few are positively 
worshiped as scarcely inferior to the gods themselves. 

Hastening away from this filthy quarter, and passing 
rows of low booths or huts in which the still more hide- 
ous gods are exhibited, we come upon the sacred Ganga, 
where multitudes are bathing away their sins. The crowd 
is dreadful. At a particular junction of the heavenly 
bodies, the auspicious hour arrives, and the rush is 
_simply crushing. At such times, as many as twenty 
thousand Sunyasis (the followers of Shiva) have been 
known to meet an equal number of Vairagis (disciples 
of Vishnu), and fight to determine, who shall descend and 
bathe in the Ganga first. The Sunyasis say, " Ganga 
descended from the bunch of hair on the head of our 
god Shiva, therefore, we must bathe first." The Vairagis 
reply, " Ganga descended from the foot of our god 
Vishnu, therefore, the right to bathe first is ours." * 

* Ward's View, p. 290. Note. 



PRACTICAL HINDUISM. 95 

The common people join in the melee, and it is not 
uncommon for numbers to be trampled under foot or 
drowned in the scuffle and rush. Meanwhile, the god- 
dess smiles complacently and flows on, bearing away not 
only the sins, but in many cases the lifeless bodies of its 
devotees. What matters it, however, for does she not 
give a sure inheritance in heaven to each one swept 
beneath her flood ? 

From Haridwar, the Ganga flows on in a south- 
easterly course, with a smooth navigable channel, diffusing 
abundance on all sides by its waters, its products and the 
facilities it affords for internal transit. Receiving the 
Ramganga, reinforced by the Kosila, she washes the feet 
of Kanouj, the former splendid capital of the principal 
kingdom along the Ganga, comprising the modern 
provinces of Delhi, Agra, and Oudh. Now it is a 
small town, with a single street, but the traveler for six 
miles wanders over a tract covered with scattered ruins. 
The Ramayana contains an extraordinary legend of its 
foundation. The Raja Kusanabha had a hundred beau- 
tiful daughters to whom Vayu, the god of the wind, 
made some amorous proposals, which they rejected. Vayu 
then, spitefully, rendered them hunchbacked, hence the 
city in which they lived was called Kanyakubja, the 
hunchbacked. We are glad to learn that the damsels 
were afterwards cured, and happily married, all of them, 
to a young Raja Brahmadatta. The most perfect vestige 



g5 . PRACTICAL HINDUISM. 

of the ancient Hindu city is a portion of a small and rude 
pagoda, its interior adorned with figures of Lakshmi 
and Rama, surrounded by the Hindu pantheon in minia- 
ture.* Kanouj was the stronghold of Brahmanism 
when the peninsula was submerged by the Buddhist revo- 
lution, and to this day, though obscure, is the cradle of 
every form of heathen superstition. 

On, on, still upon its swift and silent course, the Ganga 
glides through a pleasant and populous country, abound- 
ing in rich pasture lands and fertile meadows, bringing 
us to the commercially important city of Cawnpore, the 
population being almost entirely Hindu. The mighty 
goddess has throngs of worshippers and votaries. For 
the convenience of her devotees, bathing ghats have been 
constructed at much expense, and towards this spot a 
living stream of human beings may be seen daily in full 
flow, while on fair and special bathing days the crowd is 
simply overwhelming. Passing down with this throng, 
any morning, we arrive at the bathing ghat, and watch 
the devout worshippers. Crowds of persons may be 
seen plunging into the stream, and without reserve or 
ceremony performing their devotions — that is, bathing in 
the sacred waters. " Men and women all bathe at the 
same places in promiscuous crowds, only that women 
pay so much regard to decency as that each one of them 
keeps at the distance of a few yards from men. Women 

* McCulloch's Geographical Dictionary. 



PRACTICAL HINDUISM. 97 

of the higher and wealthier classes, however, usually 
screen themselves from public view by bathing behind 
walls and rooms of masonry or mats built on the banks 
of rivers." * The men are all but nude, with scarcely 
the pretence of a covering ; the women have a coarse 
tloth cast around them in bathing. 

But let us examine these worshippers a little more 
attentively. Here is the orthodox and zealous worship- 
per; mark him, as, gathering some flowers together, he 
goes to the river side. There he picks out some clean 
clay, leaves some on the shore, and takes a morsel with 
him. Entering the water, he immerses himself once, and 
then rubs himself with the clay, repeating the prayer, 
" O, Earth, thou bearest the weight of the sins of all ; 
take my sins upon thee, and grant me deliverance." He 
then invokes the joint efficacy of all the river goddesses, — 
the Yamuna, Godavery, Saraswati, Nurmada, Sindhu and 
Kavery, — and again immerses himself, repeating : *' On 
such a day of the month, on such a day of the moon, I, 
(such a one) bathe in the southwards-flowing Ganga." 
He then prays somewhat as follows : " O, god, I am the 
greatest sinner in the world, but thou, among the gods, 
art the greatest saviour ; I leave my cause in thy hands." 
He then prays for the final happiness of ten millions of 
his family. Another immersion, while he utters the 
invocation, '' let my guardian deity be propitious ; " then 

* Ishari Das' Domestic Manners and Customs of the Hindus. 



98 PRACTICAL HINDUISM. 

he leaves the water, and as he ascends the bank, wiping 
his hair, he thus praises the goddess, " O, Ganga, thou 
art the door of heaven, thou art the watery image of 
rehgion, thou art the garland round the head of Shiva ; 
the owl that lodges in the hollow of a tree on thy banks 
is exalted beyond measure, while the emperor, whose 
palace is far from thee, though he may possess a million 
of stately elephants, is nothing." Sitting down on the 
bank he repeats certain prayers to the sun ; then he 
pours out drink offerings to the gods, to the seven pro- 
genitors of mankind, and to his own forefathers ; next he 
forms, with the clay he had reserved, an image of the 
ling (a phallic representation of Shiva), and worships it ; 
then, after sundry other invocations and reiterations, he 
returns home, if not with a peaceful conscience, at least 
with the satisfaction of having done his duty.* 

This ostentation and prolixity of devotion is, however, 
limited to but few. The vast throngs of men and women 
immerse themselves, repeating the name of some god ; 
then walk to a temple adjacent, or to some shrine close 
at hand, bow to the idol, make an offering of something, 
offer a short ejaculatory prayer, and retire to their busi- 
ness or their homes. This is the sum total of the 
religious worship of the multitude. 

Passing these bathing ghats, the Ganga glides along, 
dimpled with ripples, past the Suttee Chowra Ghat, famous 

* Ward's View, p. liv, 



PRACTICAL HINDUISM. 99 

in the annals of the Indian mutiny of 1857. What a 
calm scene ! The rugged, almost precipitous banks, the 
sandy beach, the old temple with the worn steps leading 
down to the water, the great pipal tree growing out of, 
and overshadowing the temple. How calm ; yet that 
beach, that river-side, have been the scene of one of the 
most harrowing and thrilling tragedies in the history of 
this sorrowing world. Look across the beach, in rear 
of the temple, and you see a winding, sandy pathway 
leading down from the city to the ghat. Down that 
winding path, on the 27th June, 1857, came down a shat- 
tered band of heroic defenders, with a large company of 
helpless women and children. After a resistance of 
twenty days, in the hottest season of the year, during 
which a mere handful of Europeans had kept at bay 
thousands of blood-thirsty foes, defended simply by a 
low mud wall barely four feet high, mounting eight small 
guns, two of which only were serviceable at the end of 
the siege, the brave garrison capitulated upon condition 
that they should be conveyed by river in safety to Alla- 
habad. Weary, foot-sore and exhausted, many sorely 
wounded, the garrison to the number of four hundred 
and fifty came down to the river-side, where twenty-four 
boats lay awaiting their arrival. Of course, the whole 
horde of savages was upon them using the vilest and 
most abusive epithets, and scarce restrained from positive 
violence ; yet the hope of soon speeding away from the 



lOO PRACTICAL HINDUISM. 

disastrous and deadly scene buoyed them up, and inspired 
courage and patience. 

And now the ghat is reached, and the garrison make 
speed to embark. This is a work of no Httle difficulty, 
considering the number of sick and wounded ; but at 
last, all is arranged. The women and children are placed 
under the rough thatched roofs which partly shade the 
boats from the scorching sun ; the gentlemen, laying 
down their muskets, pull off their coats in order to work 
easier at the boats ; all is now ready to push off Hark ! 
was that the flapping of the wings of the death-angel 
above? A bugle sounds, and with fiendish whoops and 
cries, the malignant swarms of arch fiends rush forward 
to their deed of dark and deadly treachery. At the same 
time, three guns, that had been hidden in the broken 
ground on the beach, are run out, and begin pouring 
their storm of grape and shot. In vain, the inveigled 
garrison try to push off the boats ; they are fast stranded 
in the sand. In vain do they leap into the water : fire, 
and shot and sword consume them there. In vain do 
they attempt to resist; the most heroic efforts can only 
recoil upon themselves. A short half hour has passed, 
and the work of death is all but completed. The sur- 
vivors, chiefly women and children, some of them badly 
wounded, are drawn to the shore. The grown up males 
are instantly butchered, and then follows a scene unsur- 
passed in the annals of fiendish cruelty. The barbarous 



PRACTICAL HINDUISM. lOl 

savages forcibly tear away the infants from the arms of 
their terror-stricken and helpless mothers — the girls are 
restored, but the males are cast upon the ground and 
trampled upon. Infuriated and demonized, the troopers 
actually tear their tender bodies in two, and cast the 
writhing limbs into the river, amidst the agonizing shrieks 
of their mothers. The survivors, to the number of one 
hundred and thirty, all females, are driven off to await 
the awful massacre of i6th July.* 

Done, — the awful deed is done ! Their spirits have 
ascended from the river unto Him who is the judge of 
quick and the dead ; their blood has dyed its sands 
red ; while their bodies lie beneath the waters of the 
friendly Ganga, until the trump of the resurrection morn. 

We now arrive at the memorable junction of the 
Ganga and Yamuna at Prayag or Allahabad. The latter 
stream, rising at an elevation of eleven thousand feet 
above the sea, amid the snows of the Himalayas, after a 
course of seven hundred and eighty miles, through which 
it receives many important tributaries, and washes the 
feet of the important cities of Delhi and Agra, pours her 
waters into the Ganga, and thenceforward flows with her, 
a united stream. The Yamuna herself is a sacred 
stream, — believed to be the daughter of the sun, and the 
twin sister of Yama, the judge of the dead.f The point 
of junction of the Ganga and Yamuna is a specially 

* Shepherd's Cawnpore Massacre. f GaiTett's Classical Dicty. 



I02 PRACTICAL HINDUISM. 

sacred spot, as the Hindus believe that a third, though 
invisible stream, called the Saraswati, here joins the 
united rivers. Hence Prayag is visited by throngs of 
anxious pilgrims, while annually a mela, called the Magh 
Mela, is held at the junction of the rivers. Hundreds of 
thousands of devotees attend from the remotest end of 
Hindustan. Looking down from the bastions of the fort 
overlooking the junction, the whole sandy beach presents 
the most animated appearance. Booths or stalls for the 
usual glittering display of goods extend on two sides of 
a sandy street over a mile in length ; awnings for audi- 
ences attending upon the reading or singing of the Hindu 
scriptures ; the usual complement of filthy fakirs and 
hideous gods make up the chief characteristic features of 
this as of all other melas. 

But there are some distinctive features which need 
attention. Get close down to the river's side ; you notice 
a large railed area within which men and women, squatted 
upon the ground, are being clean-shorn by diligent and 
hard-working barbers. What are those huge mounds, — 
nay, hills of black ? The shorn locks of the worshippers. 
Each pilgrim who would derive the full benefit of this 
sacred shrine must here part with his hair. There is no 
distinction of age or sex, and these huge piles of black 
and rusty grey stand in palpable testimony of their cere- 
monial devotion. The idea formerly was that each hair 
removed should drop into the Ganga, a million year's 



PRACTICAL HINDUISM. IO3 

residence in heaven being promised for each hair so 
dropped. But this notion, which gave the hairy Esaus 
so great an advantage over the smooth Jacobs, has died 
out ; and a profitable trade is made by the local gov- 
ernment with the Parisian hair dressers who transform 
these rough and sometimes not very clean locks into 
those charming and unnamed adjuncts of a ladies' 
toilette which so sorely puzzle the connoiseurs of 
naturalness. 

Thus shaven and shorn, — rid of the blackness of his 
sins, the pilgrim descends into the stream, assisted 
by a Brahman priest. These priests abound in hundreds, 
each one being distinguished by a particular flag ; the 
bathing place is thus studded by numerous distinctive 
and gaily-colored standards. Together they walk into 
the stream, which is shallow in parts, and then the pilgrim 
dips and bathes, and does piija in the usual way. The 
most sacred spot is the point of junction of the two 
streams, which is plainly discernible. The Yamuna is 
clear and greenish ; the Ganga, muddy and turbid, and 
the line of junction is thus clearly defined. Multitudes 
venture out here, both men and women, and bury them- 
selves below the holy waters, pouring offerings of milk 
or flowers into the sacred stream, while shouts of Ganga 
mdi /^/y^/ resound across the waters with reverberating 
enthusiasm. 

Returning from the bathing, the pilgrims make for the 



I04 PRACTICAL HINDUISM. 

shrine of a famous Yogi, who sits upon a stone on the 
brow of the embankment outskirting the fort, and has 
been sitting there for fifty past years, without house or 
shelter of any kind. Through the torrid scorching heat, 
through the freezing cold and drenching rain, there he 
has sat, until his head is white, and his eyes are sightless, 
and his form is bent with age. Through the fearful days 
of the mutiny, he left not his place, but calmly braved 
the cruelty and cupidity of the blood-thirsty hordes who 
ransacked the city. Though worshipped as a god, he is 
exceedingly polite and gentle. 

"Why do you sit here. Guru ji?" we ask, greatly- 
interested . 

" To meditate on Him who is above," he replies. 

" But is He not everywhere present? " 

" True," he replies ; " but we need eyes to see him, 
ears to hear his voice.'^ 

" How are these to be obtained ?" we ask. 

" By shutting our eyes and ears to the world." 

" Does He communicate himself to you ? " 

" Certainly He does ; He speaks to me by day and by 
night. While other voices are falling on your ears, His 
voice is in my ear; while other sights fall on your vision, 
He reveals Himself to me." 

" What is your ultimate hope and wish, Guru ji ? " 

" I have neither wish nor hope ; I am satisfied to be 
absorbed in Him." 



PRACTICAL HINDUISM. IO5 

" But have you no interest in the world, no ties of 
affection ? " 

" None ; the world is but Maya (a delusion), there is 
no reality here." 

" Do you never feel afraid ? " we ask. 

" Afraid, of what ? Nothing can harm me." 

" But do you not feel the inclemencies of the weather, 
or need of rest? " 

" I have no feeling, but in contemplating Him who is 
above." 

We stand wondering, intensely interested and saddened. 
While throngs of worshippers kiss his feet, and drop 
their offerings, which are picked up by his disciples, we 
tell him of One who said : " Come unto me, all ye that 
are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest." 
And then go on our way in a mental dilemma whether 
to revere or despise the poor old man. 

The anxiety of the Hindu to die by the side of the 
Ganga has already been referred to, and here, in Prayag, 
many are brought from immense distances to pass their 
last hours. " A person in his last agonies is frequently 
dragged from his bed and friends, and carried, in the 
coldest or the hottest weather, to the river-side, where he 
lies, if a poor man, without a covering day or night till 
he e*xpires. With the pains of death upon him, he is 
placed up to the middle in the water and drenched with 
it. Leaves of the tulsi plant are put in his mouth, and 



106 PRACTICAL HINDUISM. 

his relations call upon Kim to repeat the names of Rama, 
Narain, Hari, Bramha or Ganga. They next spread the 
sediment of the river on his forehead or breast, and with 
the finger write on it the name of some deity." * Thus 
exposed, drenched and besoiled, any hope of survival is 
mercilessly cut short, and numbers of lives are ruthlessly 
sacrificed to this pitiable superstition. 

Leaving Prayag with its imposing fort, containing a 
memorable underground temple, representing the entire 
Hindu pantheon, and a famous tree which is supposed to 
bleed at its pores ; with its historic river junction, and 
its celebrated mela, we float down stream upon the waters 
of the sacred Ganga. And now we approach that 
supremely sacred city which has been justly designated 
at once the Athens and the Jerusalem of Hinduism, — 
the Athens of scholarship and philosophy, the Jerusalem 
of religious interest and reverence. 

Benares or Kasi, the splendid, (Varanasi, Sanskrit), is 
the capital of the ancient kingdom of that name, and has 
a population of about two hundred thousand, out of 
which at least twenty-five thousand are Brahmans. It is 
situated imposingly on the banks of the sacred river, 
extending about four miles from end to end. The view, 
as you approach the city, is exceedingly fine. Upon the 
elevated bank, rises a pile of buildings of stone and brick 
of singular and varied picturesqueness. Handsome 

* Ward's View, p. 169. 



PRACTICAL HINDUISM. lO/ 

ghats, or landing places, of stone, come down to the 
water's edge, crowned with multitudes of temples. Above 
the dense mass of houses, stand out numerous shining 
pinnacles and sculptured tops of pyramidal pagodas ; 
while the great mosque of Aurangzebe, with its gilded 
dome glittering in the sunbeam, and two minarets of 
towering height, form a grand and imposing combination. 
Entering the city, however, all the squalor and 
wretchedness of an Eastern capital recur. The streets 
are narrow, the houses crowded, some of them huddled 
together in situations of the dingiest and darkest gloom. 
Temples, fakirs' houses and idol-shops abound every- 
where. Conspicuous among these is the Golden temple 
of Bisheshwar. It has a central hall with rooms in front 
and rear, surmounted by a conical dome and a light 
pavilion, both covered with thin plates of gold, hence its 
name. The god Shiva is worshipped here by ardent 
multitudes. Farther on, you come to the monkey temple, 
with a large tank enclosed, where swarms of monkeys are 
reared, caressed and reverenced, if not po'sitively wor- 
shipped, as kindred to the famous monkey-god Hanu- 
man. The animals seem quite alive to their advantages, 
and screeching, chattering, capering with the most 
ungod-like levity, they exact their tributes from the 
worshippers with all the cunning and rigor of their kins- 
men, the Brahmans. 

This reverence for the monkey is not confined to 

2* 



108 PRACTICAL HINDUISM. 

Benares. Hanuman is worshipped daily with Rama and 
Sita in numerous temples, and the utmost regard and 
care are shown to his chattering fraternity. Mr. Ward 
describes the marriage of two monkeys by the Raja of 
Naddea, at a cost of 100,000 Rs. In the marriage pro- 
cession were seen elephants, camels, horses richly capari- 
soned, palanqueens, lamps and torches. The male 
monkey was fastened in a fine palanqueen, having a crown 
upon his head, with men standing by his side to fan him ; 
then followed singing and dancing girls in the carriages, 
every kind of Hindu music, a grand display of fire- 
works, etc. Dancing, music, singing, and every degree 
of low mirth, were exhibited at the bridegroom's palace 
for twelve days together. At the time of the marriage 
ceremony, learned Brahmans were employed in reading 
the formulas from the shastras. 

The streets of Benares are infested with pampered, 
vicious bulls, who roam about at large, and prey upon the 
people. The cow is universally reverenced throughout 
Hinduism. It is said that Bramha created the bramhans 
and the cow at the same time, the bramhans to read the 
formula, the cow to afford milk, wherewith ghee * is made 
for the burnt offerings. The reverencing of the cow " is 
in fact the only common bond of union for all castes. It 
is the sacramental symbol of Hinduism in which sectaries 
of all shades unite. The bullock-driver, whose clothes 

* Clarified butter. 



PRACTICAL HINDUISM. IO9 

have been defiled by contact with a sweeper, will rub the 
polluted part on the nose of his bullock, and thus restore 
himself to purity. The Brahman who has lost caste may 
be restored to it by taking the sacred pills composed of 
the five products of the cow, — milk, curd, butter, urine 
and dung." * All unclean places are purified with cow- 
dung ; indeed, many bramhans do not go out of the 
house of a morning, till the door-way has been rubbed 
with cow-dung. The crime of killing the cow is classed 
in Manu's Institutes along with adultery, to be expiated 
by a long and heavy penance ; but it is certain that later 
superstition has made this an offence of even graver 
magnitude. About twenty years ago, " the regent of 
one of the native states having adjudged a man guilty of 
this crime, punished him by having him tied to the foot 
of an elephant and dragged about till he was dead, an 
act for which he was deprived of the regency by the 
British Government, but for which he had the sympathy 
of all good Hindus." t 

The city of Benares is believed by the Hindus to form 
no part of the terrestrial globe, but to rest upon the point 
of Shiva's trident ; hence, they say, no earthquake ever 
affects it. The number of temples is at least two thou- 
sand, not counting innumerable smaller shrines. Indeed, 
every foot of ground here is hallowed, even the very air 
is holy. Shiva, or Mahadeo, is the' guardian deity of this 

* Robson's Hinduism, p. 134, f Robson, p. 139. 



no PRACTICAL HINDUISM. 

Hindu Jerusalem, and is worshipped chiefly under that 
most debasing representation of heathenism, the Ling; 
indeed, one of these vile figures is exhibited as set up by 
Shiva himself The stories in the puranas respecting 
the origin of the ling worship are too gross and offensive 
to be offered to a respectable audience. Suffice it to say 
that the shocking and debasing superstitions of Hinduism 
are climaxed in the selection of so vile a representation 
of one of their chief deities, and the actual worship of 
this foul einbleiu as God! ' 

But turning away from this city of hideous idols and 
filthy images, of hungry brahmans and insolent mendi- 
cants, of pampered bulls and deified monkeys, we repair 
to the side of the sacred Ganga, and look around us. 
What are these low pillars, or rather mounds of masonry, 
whited over, which dot the beach ? These are the famous 
Sati marks ; each mound marks the spot where one or 
more widows perished on the funeral pyre of their hus- 
bands. Imagine the sad scene ; here is a sick husband, 
whose case being pronounced hopeless, he is directed to 
the river-side to die ! His wife declares her resolution to be 
burnt with him. She is treated with respect, even rever- 
ence ; and as soon as her husband has expired, she takes 
her seat beside the corpse. Her feet are painted red, and 
she is attired with new clothes, while a drum-beat summons 
the village or towns-people to the awful ceremony. A 
hole is dug in the ground, round which stakes are driven 



PRACTICAL HINDUISM. I 1 1 

into the earth, and thick green stakes laid across to form 
a kind of bed, and upon these are laid, in abundance, dry 
faggots, hemp, ghee, pitch, etc. The officiating brahman 
now causes the widow to repeat the mantras, in which 
she prays that as long as fourteen Indras reign, or as 
many years as there are hairs on her head, she may abide 
in heaven with her husband, and that by this act of merit 
all the ancestors of her father, mother and husband may 
ascend to heaven. The dead body is now anointed, and, 
with suitable mantras, is laid upon the pile. The widow 
walks round the pile seven times, then ascending it, casts 
herself by the side of the corpse. Ropes are drawn over 
the two bodies, and a few faggots placed over them. The 
son then, averting his head, puts fire to the face of his 
father ; the pile is at the same time lighted on the other 
side and is soon in a blaze. The women raise an outcry, 
the drums beat, the flames crackle, and soon the awful 
work is done. The ashes are swept into the Ganga, and 
the sati is completed. 

Sometimes the husband leaves behind him several 
widows, and many of these perish, some never having 
lived with him at all. Mr. Ward relates that thirty-seven 
females were burnt alive with the remains of a brahman, 
who had more than a hundred wives. At the first kind- 
ling of the fire, only three of them were present, but the fire 
was kept burning three days ! Among the thirty-seven, 
some were forty years old, some as young as sixteen ! 



I I 2 PRACTICAL HINDUISM. 

In general, the steadiness of mind and fortitude of the 
victims are remarkable, but there are cases in which the 
resolution falters, and there is a desperate desire to escape, 
but this is all but hopeless ! A brahman having died, his 
wife, at a late hour, went to be burned with his body; all 
the necessary ceremonies were gone through, the victim 
was fastened to the pile, and the fire kindled. The night, 
however, was dark and rainy, and the poor woman 
scorched and frightened, managed to disentangle herself 
from the corpse, crept away from the pile and managed 
to hide herself among some brushwood. She was 
unhappily discovered, and her relations dragged her forth, 
insisting that she should throw herself on the pile again, 
or drown or hang herself She pleaded for her life at 
the hands of her own son, and declared that she could 
not embrace so horrid a death, but in vain. Unable to 
persuade her to enter the flames, they quickly tied her 
hands and feet and cast her into the fire, where she was 
instantly consumed. 

Instances are on record of children eight or ten years 
of age perishing in the flames with their so-called hus- 
■ bands. A girl eight years old was playing with other 
children when the news of her husband's death arrived. 
Having just before been severely beaten by her aunt, and 
fearing persistent ill-treatment from her, she insisted on 
being burnt with the dead body of her husband. The 
necessary preparations were made; she was laid upon 



PRACTICAL HINDUISM. II 3 

the pile, but before it could be fired, the poor child had 
expired, no doubt through sheer fright. Another girl of 
the same age was compelled to hold her hand for some 
time over burning coals, so that she might not shrink 
from the fire afterwards. 

Our hearts thrill at such a recital, but these scenes 
were common a generation back, as these frequently 
recurring monuments testify. Now a benignant govern- 
ment and a humanizing Christianity have driven this 
barbarity to the extreme out-posts of heathenish gloom ; 
yet, here the crackling of the sati flames and the cry 
of the victim are still heard, testifying how hard a hoary 
though deadly superstition dies, even after a century's 
stout cudgeling. 

Bidding adieu to the sacred city, we float down the 
sacred Ganga, as it winds through the fertile plains of Lower 
Bengal, swelled by the Goomtee, Gogra, Sone, Gunduck. 
Kosi and Mahananda, and washing the feet of the large 
commercial cities of Patna and Monghyr, and the ancient 
Mahomedan capitals of Dacca and Murshedabad. 
Silently and slowly, meandering through plain and 
meadow, winding through rough channels and rocky 
beds, the sacred river flows on, diffusing life and fertility 
and brightness. Beneath that fair smile, however, she 
hides a charnel house of ghastliness and death. Shock- 
ing and cruel as is the custom of self-immolation, what 
shall we say to the still more barbarous and unnatural 

H 



114 PRACTICAL HINDUISM. 

superstition of a mother devoting her child to death ? 
Yet the dark womb of Ganga holds countless infant forms 
in her mysterious repository until the resurrection morn. 
See that relentless crowd at the river-side, with wild 
whoops and shouts to the beat of the fierce tom-tom ! 
See the unnatural mother, the cruel father, with the hap- 
less child, dressed out in its best, as though for a gala 
day ! Its poor life has been vowed away to the Ganga, 
and the debt must be discharged. After the usual 
unmeaning mummery, the child is put out in the stream 
by the parents ; then encouraged to go out further and 
further into the depths ; watch it as it shrinks, recoils, 
and then attempts to retreat; and then — then — you shud- 
der with a horrible shuddering, scarcely daring to 
breathe or look, as you see one in the crowd — was it the 
father — actually pushing the child out until it falls head- 
long into the stream, with a shriek scarce deadened by 
the tom-tom and the acclamations of the crowd, while 
the waters close over the scene, sealing up the dark record 
until the judgment morn. 

Or, see that woman stealing to the river-side, with 
stealthy tread, with her babe in her arms. Fierce alliga- 
tors gape at the water's edge, ready for the prey. Do 
you call that woman mother? Ask her the reason 
of her cruel and unnatural intention, and she replies 
contemptuously, " 'tis only a girl ! " Reaching the 
river-side, she mercilessly flings out the baby girl into 



PRACTICAL HINDUISM. II 5 

the stream. A cry, a splash, a horrid gulp, and all is 
over! 

This practice of sacrificing female children was at one 
time common all over India, especially among the fierce 
Rajputs. '* The Hindus ascribe this custom to a pro- 
phecy delivered by a Bramhan to Dwip Sing, a Rajput 
king, that his race would lose the sovereignty through 
one of his female posterity. Another opinion is, that 
this shocking practice has arisen out of the law of mar- 
riage, which obliges the bride's father to pay almost 
divine honors to the bridegroom ; hence persons of high 
caste, unwilling thus to humble themselves for the sake 
of a daughter, destroy the infant." * Though strictly 
interdicted by the English government, under the sever- 
est penalties, this horrid crime is still practiced in secret 
coverts ; and all the vigilance of executive law is defeated 
in the attempt to detect the perpetrator of the foul deed. 

" About two hundred miles from the sea, the delta of 
the Ganga, which is twice as large as that of the Nile, 
begins to be formed. Of its two principal arms, which 
form the outermost of the whole series, the east is the 
larger, and preserves the original direction of the main 
stream together with the name of Ganga; but the west- 
ern arm, or Cossimbazar branch, called afterwards the 
Hooghly, is considered by natives the true Bhagarathi, 
and invested with the greatest sanctity. The whole of the 

* Ward's View, p. 252. 



Il6 PRACTICAL HINDUISM. 

delta between the two principal arms is a vast alluvial 
flat, nearly two hundred miles in breadth, intersected by 
numerous rivers interlacing each other in all directions, 
and which enter the sea by from twelve to twenty mouths. 
The region round the mouths of the Ganga is termed the 
Sunderbands, and is a pestiferous tract, covered with 
jungle, and swarming with tigers and other beasts of 
prey." * 

In these jungles may be found dwelling, in the most 
retired localities, fakirs or yogis, absorbed in religious 
austerities. There are two classes of religious mendi- 
cants among the Hindus; the begging class is, of course, 
the most numerous. They abound in the streets, they 
swarm in melas and fairs ; they crowd in the bazars, 
resorting to every sort of expedient and device to extort 
money. They literally prey upon the people, and with 
inconceivable impudence and audacity exact their ill- 
deserved tribute. They are generally as vile in their 
practices as they are unclean in their persons; and while 
affecting the highest saintliness, are too often begrimed 
with the foulest crimes. 

But there is another class of yogis, men earnest and 
sincere and devoted, though fatally misguided. These 
dwell by themselves in caves and secret haunts, by river- 
side, and in jungle wilds. Some practice the most 
severe austerities; others dwell alone, absorbed in silent 

* McCullough's Geographical Dictionary. 



PRACTICAL HINDUISM. II7 

and unspeakable meditation. Here there is no desire to 
be seen of men, no cupidity or greed. This class of men 
shun observation ; indeed, earnestly strive to become, if 
they do not actually become, dead to all external impres- 
sions and associations. Their desire and hope are, if 
they have desire and hope at all, that being dead to every- 
thing below, and being engrossed in meditation upon 
the supreme, they will, in due time, become absorbed in 
Bramh. In the pestiferous jungle of the Sunderbands, 
swarming with numerous reptiles and beasts of prey, 
these mendicants dwell, evidently devoid of fear for the 
present, or anxiety for the future. The wild fruit and 
roots of trees and jungle shrubs, their daily food ; the 
dark waters of the river, their drink ; grass and withered 
leaves, their couch ; the screech of the hyena, the hiss 
of the serpent, the roar of the tiger, their evening lull- 
aby. Numbers are carried off by the fierce beasts, and 
naught is left but the fresh paw-marks upon the damp 
sand, and some droppings of the victim's blood. The 
survivors know their danger, yet live their brief day dead 
to danger or dread. 

Poor deluded men, who can refrain from a mingled 
respect and pity for them ! And who can help wondering 
whether the midnight gloom of their soul is not broken 
by some ray of light from above ! Is it not conceivable 
that the intense yearning of their heart may be recom- 
pensed with some droppings of comfort from on high ? 



Il8 PRACTICAL HINDUISM. 

Oh, for the sure and satisfying light of the gospel of 
Christ, to break in with comfort and healing upon the 
dark horizon of these earnest, yet deluded minds ? 

The most singular stories are afloat with respect to 
these men, who are, of course, revered by the Hindus as 
scarcely inferior to the gods. Here is one which is uni- 
versally credited : " Some years ago, a European, with 
his Hindu clerk and other servants, passed through the 
Sunderbands. One day as the European was walking 
through the forests, he saw something which appeared 
to be a human being, standing in a hole in the earth. 
The European went up and beat this animated clay till 
the blood came ; but it did not appear that the person 
was conscious of the least pain, — -he uttered no cries, nor 
manifested the least sensibility. The European was 
overwhelmed with astonishment, and asked what this 
could mean. The clerk said, he had learnt from the 
shastras that there existed such men called yogis, who 
were destitute of passion, and proof against pain. After 
hearing this account, the European ordered his clerk to 
take the man home. He did so, and kept him some time 
at his house ; when fed, he would eat, and at proper 
times, would sleep, and attend to the necessary functions 
of life ; but he took no interest in anything. At length 
the clerk, wearied with keeping him, sent him to the 
house of his spiritual teacher at Khurd. Here some 
bad persons put fire into his hands, and played a number 



PRACTICAL HINDUISM. II 9 

of tricks with him, but without making the least impres- 
sion. The teacher was soon tired of his guest, and 
sent him to Benares. On the way, when the boat one 
evening lay to for the night, this yogi went on shore, 
and while he was walking by the side of the river, 
another religious mendicant, with a smiling countenance, 
met him ; they embraced each other, and — were seen no 
more! " * 

Passing down the holy river, here named the Hooghly, 
we come through suburban woods and marshy plantations 
to the great city of Calcutta, the busy and flourishing 
metropolis of the British dominions in India. Looking 
upon its vast extent, its wealth and magnificence, it is 
difficult to recall the day of small beginnings when this 
gay and thriving metropolis was founded. The old 
mercantile E. I. Company, which then represented the 
British Government, had striven in vain to get a footing 
in Bengal ; the Great Mogal in Dehli was inexorable. It 
was at this juncture that an English physician of the 
name of Boughton, by healing the daughter of the 
Emperor Shah Jehan, procured an impQna.\ Jinnan autho- 
rizing his countrymen to trade in Bengal, duty free, and to 
establish a factory at Hooghly, twenty-six miles from the 
present capital. It was not until half a century later, 
however, that the capital was founded upon the site of 
three native villages, Calcutta, Chuttanutty and Govind- 

* Ward's View, p. 300. 



I20 PRACTICAL HINDUISM. 

pore, purchased by Job Charnock, the governor, from the 
viceroy of Bengal for the sum of Rs. 16,000. The Court 
of directors, characteristically, thought the price " very 
high." 

This founder of Calcutta was a shrewd trader, but by 
no means a model in other respects. He married a native 
wife, whom he had rescued from the funeral pile, and by 
her was converted to Hinduism. After her death, he 
annually sacrificed a cock on her tomb. 

Upon this site has sprung up the imposing capital of 
British power and wealth in the East. Approaching it 
fi-om the sea, the elegant villas, the splendid gardens, the 
tall church spires, and the regular and substantial outline 
of Fort William, form an imposing and attractive spec- 
tacle. From Kidderpore to Cossipore, the city has a 
length of more than six miles, with an average breadth of 
one and one-half miles. A handsome quay, similar in 
many respects to that of St. Petersburg, called the Strand, 
is continued for three miles along the river-bank, furnished 
with about thirty principal ghats or landing places. The 
sacred river is here about a mile in width at high water, 
and is crowded with shipping. The residence of the 
British Viceroy, a magnificent pile of buildings, close to 
the Strand, is the centre of a vast accumulation of 
splendid edifices, churches, offices, shops and private 
residences. The streets are crowded with the most 
heterogenous collection of human beings to be found in 




< 

H 
I- 

O 
< 



PRACTICAL HINDUISM. 121 

the world. Representatives of every clime and nation, 
types of every rank and station, specimens of full-dress, 
half-dress and no dress at all, may be found thronging the 
busy thoroughfares. Calcutta is, in fact, the greatest 
emporium of the East, Canton, perhaps, only excepted. 
The gross amount of its imports and exports amount 
to from ten to twelve million pounds sterling a year. 

This repository of wealth, the centre of culture and 
enlightenment, is no exception to the abounding super- 
stitions of heathenism. The elect deity of the Hindus 
of Calcutta is the goddess Kali, the Moloch of Hindu 
mythology. She is represented as a very black woman 
with four arms ; in one she holds the exterminating 
sword; in another, by the hair, a severed human head; a 
third points downwards indicating the destruction which 
surrounds her, and the fourth is raised upwards pointing 
to a new creation. Her wild, dishevelled hair reaching to 
her feet, her necklace of human heads, her protruding 
tongue, her cincture of blood-stained hands, and her 
position on the body of her prostrate husband, make her 
altogether the most hideous representation possible. 
There is a celebrated temple dedicated to her at Kali- 
ghat, near Calcutta, and impure sacrifices are offered at 
it ; and on the occasion of the annual festivals, her 
temple literally swims with blood. 

Images, effigies and pictures of this goddess are wor- 
shipped at particular periods, and then thrown into the 



122 PRACTICAL HINDUISM. 

river. So powerful is the influence of this terrible god- 
dess that even the Mahomedans offer sacriflces and gifts 
to her, and instances are even on record of Europeans 
making thank-offerings and propitiatory sacrifices to this 
hideous deity. These disgraceful proceedings, however, 
belong to a bygone generation, whose demoralized prac- 
tices have left an ineffaceable stain upon the page of 
British Indian history. 

Still floating down the sacred stream, past the city of 
palaces, through sodden rice fields and plantation groves, 
through low jungles and marshy swamps, we come 
to Sagar, an island ten miles in length and five in breadth, 
in the mouth of the Hooghly, before it leaps finally into 
the sea, sixty miles southwest from Calcutta. This is 
the last, though not the least sacred shrine of the mighty 
Ganga, and to this place multitudes throng all round the 
year, while at the annual festivals, the concourse of pil- 
grims is immense. 

At this place a kind of sacrificial suicide, called Kamya 
Maran, was formerly practiced by the pilgrims, as highly 
meritorious. A number of expressions in the shastras 
countenance the practice of suicide, and some of the 
smritis and puranas lay down rules for Kamya maran, 
declaring it, however, a crime in a bramhan, but meritor- 
ious in a sudra. The person is directed first, to offer 
an atonement for all his sins, by making a present of 
gold to bramhans, and honoring them with a feast; 



PRACTICAL HINDUISM. 1 23 

afterwards putting on new apparel, and adorning himself 
with garlands of flowers, he is accompanied to the river 
by a band of music. If he has any property, he gives it 
to whom he pleases; then, sitting down by the side of the 
river, he repeats the name of his idol, and proclaims that 
he is now about to renounce his life in this place, in order 
to obtain such or such a benefit. After this, he and his 
friends proceed on a boat, and fastening pans of water to 
his body, he plunges into the stream. The spectators 
cry out Hari Bal ! Hari Bal ! (Huzza ! Huzza !) and 
then retire.* 

" It is considered an auspicious sign if the person is 
speedily seized by a shark or an alligator ; but his future 
happiness is supposed to be very doubtful if he should 
remain long in the water before he is drowned." So 
great was the eagerness to renounce life in this place, 
that the British Government was compelled to send down 
a strong guard to prevent persons from murdering them- 
selves and their children at this junction of the Ganga 
with the sea, at the annual festivals held in this place. 

It has not unfrequently happened that when a man 
has thus determined, and is accompanied to the river- 
side by his friends and the attendant brahmans, that his 
resolution fails, and he is unwilling to go forward. In 
this emergency his friends are ready to assist him in his 
meritorious purpose, and have been known to push the 

* Ward's View, p. 267. 
3 



124 PRACTICAL HINDUISM. 

unhappy victim in, not doubting that they were helping 
him up to heaven. Indigent persons, people with incur- 
able diseases, afflicted and sorrowing persons, most 
commonly practice this sacrifice, confident that thereby 
their miseries and ailments are cut off, and they received 
into heaven. 

There existed formerly at Ksheru, a village near Nad- 
dea, an instrument called the Karavat, which was used 
by devotees to cut off their own heads. The instrument 
was made in the shape of a half moon, with a sharp edge, 
and was placed at the back of the neck, having chains 
fastened at the two extremities. The infatuated devotee, 
placing his feet on the stirrups, gave a violent jerk, which 
jnstantly severed his head from his body. 

Here, at the river side, it was not uncommon for widows 
to be buried alive with the corpses of their husbands. 
An eye witness. Captain Kemp, relates that an artizan 
being dangerously sick, he was placed close to the water 
of the Ganga, and immersed at intervals, while the sacred 
water was poured into his mouth with a small shell. 
Thus exposed and treated, he died, when his wife deter- 
mined to be buried with his body. A circular grave of 
about fifteen feet in circumference, and five or six feet deep 
was prepared ; the corpse was then, after reading certain 
mantras, placed in the grave in a sitting posture. The 
young widow now came forward, and having circum- 
ambulated the grave seven times, crying out, Hari Bal ! 



PRACTICAL HINDUISM. 12^ 

Hari Bal ! descended into it. She placed herself in a 
sitting posture, with her face to the back of her husband, 
embracing the corpse with her left arm, and reclining her 
head on his shoulders ; the other hand she placed over 
her own head, with her forefinger erect, which she moved 
in a, circular direction. The earth was then deliberately 
put round them, two men being in the grave for the pur- 
pose of stamping it round the living and the dead, which 
they did as the gardener does around a plant newly trans- 
planted, till the earth rose to a level with the surface, or 
two or three feet above the heads of the entombed. As 
her head was covered sometime before the fingers of her 
right hand, it was easy to see whether any relenting or 
regret was manifested ; but the finger moved round in 
the same manner as at first, till the earth closed the 
scene.* 

And now, standing beside the sacred river, as with 
heave and surge and swelling surf, she leaps into the 
dark expanse of water beyond, we pause for a moment 
ere we bid the mighty Ganga adieu. 

Ah ! sacred stream, rising amidst impassable barriers 
of untrodden snow, watering half a continent, receiving 
numerous tributaries, — what woes, what sorrows, what 
weight of grief, what sighings for deliverance dost thou 
bear upon thy bosom into the dark ocean ! At once 
cathedral and cloister, shrine and temple, — what prayers, 

* Ward's View, xlviii. 



126 PRACTICAL HINDUISM. 

what aspirations, what breathings upward, what sacrifices 
have been offered upon thine altar ! Ah ! and what 
heartless, unnatural cruelties have been perpetrated upon 
thy bosom; — yes, an altar, yet more appropriately the 
bloody shambles for idolatrous and superstitious butch- 
ery ! Yea, and within the depths of thy mysterious 
womb a charnel-house slumbers — slumbers softly and 
silently — slumbers till the blast of the resurrection morn 
calls upon thee, O Ganga, to give up thy dead ! 

Thus buried in reverie, deep and unutterable, the 
shadows steal on and the curtains of night gather, while 
the pale watchers from the sky look down with mild and 
benignant gaze. Look around. Upon the river and by 
its side are numerous lamps, kindled by devotees, emit- 
ting bright and cheering light. See how gaily they 
float down the stream into the boundless expanse of 
waters beyond. So bright, so beautiful is the spectacle, 
that the gloom and the sorrow of my painful meditation 
are lifted, and hope and joy fill my soul again 1 

Ah ! is this not a parable vouchsafed for my teach- 
ing ? That dark river is India's heathenism, flowing on 
gloomily towards the sea of Eternal midnight. These 
lights on the shore, these floating lamps upon the water, 
— are they not the feet of those who publish glad tidings, 
the glad tidings of salvation ! Few, indeed, at first, 
few, feeble and far between, but rapidly increasing and 
brightening, until the river is covered with lamps, and 



PRACTICAL HINDUIS 12/ 

its dark waters are lit up with a serene and genial glow. 
Brighter and brighter it glows, until the horizon reddens 
and the sky brightens, and the morning breaks upon poor 
benighted India. Then, as the Sun of Righteousness 
rises to the meridian, that once dark and swollen river, 
stained with the carnage of unnumbered cruelties, iicrw 
glowing like a mirror and reflecting the light and glory 
of the day, becomes the pathway of light to the great 
ocean; and thus India, redeemed, becomes the harbinger 
and handmaid for the regeneration of the world of heath- 
enism beyond ! 

God hasten the day! Amen. 



IV. 

DAL BHATr 



OR, 



The Hindu at Home 



The life of nations, like that of individuals, has an 
exterior and an interior aspect. The exterior has refer- 
ence to those acts, utterances and exercises which con- 
nect life with those around us ; the interior is the life of 
the individual hidden from outward gaze, yet revealing 
the deepest, truest lineaments of personal character. If 
I wish to become truly and intimately acquainted with a 
person, I must not only observe him on " Change," in the 
public thoroughfare, or in the crowded haunts of pleasure ; 
I must seek him at his home where, reserve and artificial 
safeguards thrown altogether aside, he moves and speaks 
and acts in truest accord with his inner nature. 

Thus, with the nation. After we have surveyed its 
institutions and establishments, studied its creeds and 
confessions, explored its rules and rounds of religious 

--Dal, a soup made' of a kind of pulse, eaten with B hat ox boiled rice, 
fonning the Hindu's common diet. 
128 



THE HINDU AT HOME. 1 29 

duty, its true life remains but partially revealed and 
understood. We need to get behind the curtain and to 
survey the play and counter-play of its deeper sensibili- 
ties. These are usually represented in its private and 
domestic usages, customs and manners. And with a 
nation like the Hindus, with whom religion is interwoven 
in the fabric of every social and domestic event, such a 
study is especially needed to furnish an adequate concep- 
tion of their moral and religious position. Let it be 
remembered that it is not religion as it is entombed in 
the Vedas, subtilized in the Upanishads, or allegorized 
in the Puranas, which moulds and shapes the life of the 
Hindu masses, but religion, as it percolates through the 
every-day affairs of his ordinary life. Few know and 
fewer care about the philosophical refinements of these 
sacred writings, — it is the still, but deep current of moral 
and religious thought flowing through all the events of 
their childhood, youth and riper years, which make 
the Hindus essentially what they are to-day. 

Hence, we must know the Hindu at home. We must 
understand his sentiments, and enter into sympathy with 
his thoughts and feelings. We must trace the meander- 
ings of his religious instincts through his personal life, 
and accurately measure the facilities or resistances which 
these offer to evangelizing effort. It is here that the 
average missionary fails. He has studied the traditions 

of the Hindu system, mastered its philosophy, waded 
6* I 



130 THE HINDU AT HOME. 

through its Hterature, yet, really he is all but a stranger 
to the Hindu personally. He is brought into relation 
with him officially, as the propagator of a new faith, but 
there are no bonds of sympathy or fellow-feeling which 
bind the Christian teacher to the heathen. The social 
exclusiveness of the Hindu, and the conventional distance 
of the foreigner — European or American — as the represen- 
tative of the ruling race, co-operate, no doubt, in bringing 
about this estrangement ; but the chief cause is the for- 
eigner's deficiency in acquaintance and sympathy with 
the native's personal life. We believe an accurate and 
sympathetic acquaintance with the Hindu's habits of 
private life to be more important, as a factor of access to 
his heart, than the most intelligent perception of the 
theories of his speculative or systematic philosophy. 

A view of the inexorable caste system, prevalent in 
India, is a necessary preface to an account of the Hindu at 
home. The original four divisions into Brahman, the priest, 
Kshatriya, the soldier, Vaisya, the merchant, and Sudra, 
the servile masses,^still exist, only there are numer- 
ous sections and sub-divisions. The Brahman is to be 
found pursuing other callings besides the priestly office to 
which he was originally designated. The soldierly Ksha- 
triya, having now no employment for the spear, the sword 
and the buckler, is now frequently the landholder or far- 
mer, or even merchant. The Vaisyas are generally retail 
merchants in grain, cloths, drugs, etc. The Sudras, or 



THE HINDU AT HOME. I3I 

lowest class, embrace the kayaths or writers, tillers and 
agriculturists, tradesmen and artizans, barbers, cowherds, 
shepherds, fishermen, fullers, potters, weavers, shoemakers 
and scavengers. 

These several castes are absolutely walled off one from 
the other. There is no social intercourse, no intermar- 
riage. The son may not adopt any calling or trade but 
his father's. Society is thus stereotyped in the narrowest 
grooves, and progress and advancement utterly frus- 
trated. 

Now, the customs and manners of these various castes 
differ in many important particulars. This is to be 
expected, since these usages and customs are largely the 
vehicles for their religious instincts ; and, religiously, 
there is a broad and unbridgeable gap between the three 
first " twice-born " castes, and the mean " once-born " 
Sudras. The lowest class have scarcely any religion at 
all ; they are outcasts, and are neither expected nor con- 
sidered fit to engage in religious exercises. The Brah- 
man will not go into their houses to perform piija or to 
eat. If some priest should be bribed to come and go 
through some form of prescribed worship, the Sudra, 
who invited him, cannot join in the holy rites ; he must 
stand afar and merely look on ! ' 

But superstition supplies what religion denies them. 
Fear of demons and evil spirits haunt them constantly, 
and rites and processes are devised to get rid of these 



132 THE HINDU AT HOME. 

influences. Omens and portents are eagerly looked and 
watched for; and their domestic usages are naturally cast 
in the mould of these superstitions. 

Again, the manners and customs of the same caste do 
not correspond, in every particular, in all parts of India. 
There are local idiosyncracies and traditions, which give 
hue and tinge to the domestic usages of the people, and 
shape their personal life. The North of India, however, 
may be selected as the truest representative of Hinduism, 
in general, and a sketch of the habits of life of the better 
castes in this typical region, is all that can be attempted 
within the limits of these observations. 

Mul Raj and Fateh Singh are two brothers, doing a 
large business in timber and hardware. They are Ksha- 
triyas, or Rajputs, — the haughty soldier caste, and are 
proud of the warlike traditions of their fathers, although 
they are now very quiet and peaceable citizens. They 
have extensive business premises in a populous part of 
the city, consisting of a large timber yard, and godowns 
for the storage of miscellaneous goods, suitable to their 
trade. The timber yard is only a specimen show ; their 
chief stock lies at the river side. The godowns are low 
and dingy, and stocked with a promiscuous assortment 
of goods, without arrangement, order or classification. 
Lumber, which was old and obsolete in a previous gen- 
eration, is tossed and tumbled about with more modern 
and useful goods. The native merchant never attempts 



THE HINDU AT HOME. 1 33 

a clearance of old and used-up stores ; from generation 
to generation the accumulation goes on, the new ming- 
ling with the old, in a confusion hopeless to all but the 
initiated proprietor. He can lay his hand upon anything 
from a nail to an anchor, and fill up any order for the 
most heterogenous assortment of things with extraordi- 
nary rapidity. 

Their orivate dwelling- is at some distance from their 
business premises. In the back of the street, through 
yonder lane, you come to a brick-built, white-plastered 
house with flat roof and low entrance. Pass in through 
that narrow door, and you come to a range of small, low- 
roofed, ill-ventilated rooms ; beyond them, you reach an 
open court-yard, at one end of which is a well with a 
rough pulley wherewith to draw water. On the other 
side are more rooms of the same kind, in which the 
women and children live. You are struck with the 
straitness and smallness of the rooms and the absence 
of ventilation and light. The doors are few and low ; 
each door-leaf is a solid plank, without glass or Venetians. 
When they are closed, the room is dark, save where some 
rays of light glimmer through narrow, barred windows. 

What about the furniture and furnishings? In the 
outer rooms are a couple of very rough, timber-bottomed 
chairs, and a square wooden platform, or dais, about a 
foot high, called a tak/if. Upon this, the neighbors and 
friends seat themselves for an evening chat, while the 



134 THE HINDU AT HOME. 

chairs are reserved for honored and extraordinary visitors. 
The inner rooms are still more barely furnished. A few 
heavy, stoutly-built boxes with lock and key for valua- 
bles ; some round baskets, plastered and gaily colored, for 
ordinary things ; a few low stools ; rough, but strong bed- 
steads, and a large array of cooking utensils, scrubbed 
and burnished bright, are all that the rooms contain.. 
Indeed, this is all the stock of furniture and furnishing 
which the wealthiest Hindu home possesses. Sometimes, 
in the case of those who have the means and are accus- 
tomed to receive European visitors, there is an outside 
reception room, adorned with gaudy pictures and mirrors 
in guilt frames ; but the interior apartments are stereo- 
typed upon the model now described. The Hindu's 
wealth is not invested in furniture or upholstery, but in 
solid jewellery, and profusion and variety of cooking, 
eating and washing utensils. 

But now as to the family. First of all, there is the old 
patriarch of the family, — the aged and honored father of 
Mul Raj and Fateh Singh, He is old and infirm now, — 
though he could not tell you how old,- — but the venera- 
ble old sire rigidly exacts the homage and honor due to 
his patriarchal position. Among the ladies, there are the 
wives of Mul Raj and Fateh Singh, and a young sister, 
eight years of age ; while two children of Mul Raj, a 
boy and a girl, complete the family group. Fateh Singh, 
recently married, has no children. 



THE HINDU AT HOME. 1 35 

The aged father is head of the household. He is, of 
course, too old to engage in any active work ; but he 
directs, controls, and conserves the entire household 
according to the laws of Hindu patriarchal government. 

The two brothers, living in the same house and pur- 
suing the same occupation, have all things in common. 

The elder brother, Mul Raj, is so much the senior 
that his younger brother looks up to him for direction 
and advice. Their wives sustain similar relations, and 
generally there is concord and good feeling between the 
two families. The young sister, Rukminee, occupying 
the position midway between the ladies and the children, 
is an object of interest to all. Though only eight, and 
in mind, manner and countenance, only a child, do not 
be surprised if I tell you, that she is married! Her hus- 
band is only a boy often, the son of a well-to-do zemin- 
der, or land holder, in a distant district. Though mar- 
ried, she, for the present, lives with her parents, as the 
Gauna, or ceremony, which sends the bride finally to the 
husband's home, has not yet taken place. 

Of the children we need not speak particularly, save 
to say that they are bright, cheerful and intelligent, the 
girl Chameli, six years old, the boy, Hunar Singh, two 
years younger, fondly and familiarly called Hunaroo ! 

Let us follow the family through a single ordinary day 
in its home life. The Hindus are early risers. In the 
warm season, extending from April to October, they 



136 THE HINDU AT HOME. 

sleep either upon the house top or in the court-yard, or 
in the verandah, if rain should be threatening ; and are 
usually up at five or earlier in the morning. In the cold 
weather, when they sleep within doors, they rise later, but 
even then, they are out before seven. 

Rising in the morning, while but half awake, the 
Hindu repeats the name of Rama several times. Hap- 
pening to yawn, he immediately fillips his thumb and 
middle finger, though he does not know why. Rising 
from his bed, he repairs to the fields for neccessary pur- 
poses. Returning, he prepares for his morning toilette. 
He plucks a twig from the bitter Neem tree, breaks off a 
span length of it, crushes one end between his teeth and 
extemporizes a tooth brush. He next draws up water 
from the well in the yard with an iron bucket, takes a 
lota full of it, and prepares to wash his hands and face. 
This is quickly done ; he then throws on an extra gar- 
ment upon him, — the thickness and texture depending 
on the season and weather, lights his hooka, takes a few 
pulls, with its euphonious hubble-bubble ; and is ready to 

go out. 

With a passing Rama, Rama, to friend or acquaintance 
and a neighborly gossip by the way, he repairs to his 
place of business. While going, he will sedulously avoid 
those sights and sounds which may augur ill for the day. 
Should one sneeze, or should he hear the cawing of a 
crow or the cry of a kite, or should he meet an oil- 



THE HINDU AT HOME. 1 3/ 

man, or one blind or lame, or see a cat cross his path, he 
would be greatly distressed as to the day before him. On 
the other hand, if a fox cross his path, if he hear a 
gong or shell summoning to worship, or if he meet a 
Brahman with his head uncovered, or — a woman of the 
town, — he would rejoice, hailing it as an auspicious omen. 
Some are so grossly superstitious that if any evil portent 
occurs on the way they would return to their home, have 
a smoke, or chew a betel leaf, and proceed afresh. 

Leaving the male representatives of our Hindu home 
at their business for the present, we return to the women 
at the house. They, too, rise early, dispatch a hasty toi- 
lette, and proceed straight to their daily work. The first 
duty is to cleanse the cooking and other utensils, chiefly 
of brass. This is done with the utmost thoroughness, 
with moistened clay or sand and water. Then the rooms 
are swept and tidied up. Water for culinary purposes is 
then drawn from the well either by the ladies themselves 
or by a female servant. These preliminaries being settled, 
the good wife prepares to cook the morning meal. Of 
course, the wheat has been ground before. When this 
needs to be done, the women rise as early as three or 
four in the morning, and sit at the grindstone, which oc- 
cupies an important part of the domestic institution. 
Sitting opposite each other and taking hold upon the 
handle which causes the upper stone to revolve sharply 
upon the lower which is fixed to the earth, two women, 



138 THE HINDU AT HOME. 

— either the ladies of the house, or servants hired by 
them, — grind all the wheat needed for the present use of 
the family. 

The first operation in the culinary process is to cleanse 
the kitchen or cooking place. This must be done daily, 
as the place is supposed to contract ceremonial defilement 
by the day's use. Water and clay, made into a very thin 
paste, are used for the purpose, — after which the whole 
place is purified by a thin plaster of cow dung. 

And now, while preparing for or engaged in the nec- 
essary and — to the Hindu woman — by no means humili- 
ating work of cooking, friends or neighbors drop in for 
a few moments gossip, which in India, as elsewhere, is 
the smoky fuel of social life. Here is a middle aged and 
heavy looking woman carrying a boy over two years old 
upon her hips. With a — " and how are you to-day, 
mother of Chameli?" in the form of a morning saluta- 
tion, uttered in a loud, croaking roice, she squats right 
down on the ground, setting her child before her. 

Let it be noted that this is the usual form of address 
to a mother and wife. If she be not a mother, the 
address is, — wife of such a one. Husband and wife 
never name each other ; they address, and speak of each 
other as the father or mother of such a one— naming 
the eldest child. If there be no children, other expres- 
sions are used which are understood as covertly having 
this signification. 



THE HINDU AT HOME. 1 39 

" All is well with me," replies Chameli's mother, look- 
ing up from her work, " but how is your boy to-day ? " 

** Oh badly, very badly, indeed ! Ill luck to that 
kambakht mother of Sarupia for her evil turn to me. 
and mine." 

"Why, what has she done?" ask all the women 
together with keen curiosity. 

" Done ! ^' replies the heavy looking lady. " Why she 
has succeeded in her evil purpose at last. But never 
mind : Hcindi gat to gai, kutte ki zat to pahcJidni (the 
pot is smashed and gone but the nature of the dog is 
known). 

" Rama ! Rama ! " exclaim her female auditors in 
sympathetic chorus. 

^* But what did Sarupia's mother dof persists the 
eight year old married sister. 

*' Just hear her," reproachfully rejoins the irate mother; 
" as though I should blame the wretched woman for 
nothing ! But is it not true 

Andhe ke age rcnve 
Apna dida khowe ! ^^ 

(weeping before the blind, we hurt our own eyes). 

" Of course ! Of course ! " rejoin all the women in 
sympathetic harmony, while Rukminee subsides instantly. 

** Do',' — proceeds the irascible mother, now that she 
is no longer pressed for details, — " why that wretched 



140 THE HINDU AT HOME. 

woman has had an evil eye upon me and mine for a long, 
long while. I have known it all the time, but I would 
give her no chance to vent her unlucky spite on me, and 
so kept this poor boy out of her sight as long as I could. 
But four days ago, I was bringing him out in my arms, 
so as to give him an airing, and as bad luck would have 
it, — there she stood ! I could not very well avoid her, 
and this poor child smiled in her face, when she abruptly 
says, — ' How well your child is looking to-day ! ' " 

'' Are Rama f Rama!'' exclaim all her auditors in 
chorus, in stern deprecation. " How could she say 
that ! " 

" How could she, indeed ! well you know my poor 
boy faded like a leaf from that unlucky moment. I 
knew her evil eye had done it ; I am sure of it ! " 

" Well, but what have you done, good mother, to 
destroy the spell ? " 

" I have done what I could. Several times have I 
turned my hand over his head, but he is still poorly.'' 
[This " turning the hand " is the prescribed process for 
removing the effect of an evil eye. A little chaff, salt, 
etc., are taken in the hand and waved over the child's 
head two or three times, and then cast into the fire]. 

" Oh yes, see how poorly he is ! " exclaim all the 
women in chorus, — though the boy seems in excellent 
health and condition for an unweaned child of three, but 
of course, they dare not say so. 



THE HINDU AT HOME. I4I 

" I have vowed a kid to Kali Mai," adds the mother, 
"when she restores my boy to health, and I trust she 
may have it soon." 

Meanwhile the hours have gone by rapidly. It is now 
almost eleven o'clock, and the good-men, Mul Raj and 
his brother, leaving their business in charge of a servant, 
repair to their home for their first meal. Leaving his 
shoes at the door, the Hindu enters the yard and pre- 
pares first of all to bathe. This is not only a sanitary 
process, it is a religious rite. Stripping off all his gar- 
ments, save his dhoti or the cloth which he girds round 
himself, he draws water and performs his ablutions. He 
carefully rinses out his janeo or sacred cord, washes the 
solitary lock upon his head ; then making a hollow with 
both his hands, he offers water to the sun, turning his 
face to that luminary, muttering words of prayer and 
praise. Then drying himself he prepares for worship or 
p7ija. This should strictly be performed three times a 
day, at sunrise, noon and sunset; but religious Hindus 
who have business employments, seldom find time for 
more than two daily seasons of worship. 

Both Vishnu and Shiva have devoted votaries ; the 
Kshatriyas generally choose the latter for their guardian 
deity. Our Hindu having bathed, without clothing 
himself further, seats himself upon a woolen cloth, or a 
mat of coosa grass, or on a deer skin ; other skins are 
unclean. He now loosens one end of his dJioti, though 



142 THE HINDU AT HOME. 

he cannot explain why ; then he knots the single lock 
upon his head. He next places the image of Shiva 
before him, bathes it with water, anoints it with charidan 
(sandal wood), offers it the leaf of the bel tree, with flow- 
ers, fruits and sweetmeats. These are screened for a 
time, so that the god may eat undisturbed, some incense 
is now burnt in a cup ; then a lamp is lit and moved in a 
circle three or four times before the image. A little bell 
is tinkled to please the deity, and hymns and prayers are 
repeated. The worshipper now asks the god if he is 
happy, and with charming simplicity answers for him, 
" Very happy ! " A particular short prayer called the 
Gaetri is supposed to have special avail in procuring for- 
giveness, of sins and heart cleansing. It runs thus: "O 
earth, firmament and heaven, we meditate on the great 
light of the Sun ; may it enlighten our hearts." 

Each adult male of the household performs puja by 
himself Then they come together for the forenoon meal. 
The place where they eat is called the Chauka, which is 
part of the floor of the kitchen, and like it, is cleansed 
every day. Still stripped of all their clothing except the 
dhoti, bareheaded and barefooted, they gather round upon 
the bare floor. The women and the children are not 
permitted to sit down with them. The food is then placed 
in little plates or platters. Of course, no animal food is 
taken ; the morning meal consists commonly of wheaten 
cakes fried in ghee, or baked on coals, with ddl (a soup 



THE HINDU AT HOME. I43 

■ 

made of a kind of pulse), or vegetable curry called 
tarkdri. Milk, cream or dahi (curdled milk) with sweet- 
meats and fruit close the breakfast. 

The Hindu, of course, eats with his fingers. The 
right hand is used for this purpose, the left being stretched 
out as far as it will go, being unclean. With great dex- 
terity, the fingers and thumb of the right hand seize upon 
the morsel, roll it into a ball, and convey it to the mouth. 
When the last morsel is eaten, the fingers are licked 
clean with infinite relish ; then the hands and face are 
once more washed, and the meal is over. 

If a man of inferior caste were to touch the Hindu 
while eating, he would immediately rise and not take 
another mouthful if he were to go without food the whole 
day ; he would throw out even that which he might have 
in his mouth. 

Not until the men have eaten and left, can the women 
come to the Chaiika. A wife will eat on her husband's 
plate, and gladly partake of the remnants left. 

After breakfast, the men repair to their business ; the 
women revert to their household duties. At sunset, when 
it is possible for the good man of the house to get away 
from his work, he repairs to his home and performs puja 
again. As dinner will not be ready for some time, friends 
drop in, and smoke and discuss the topics of the day for 
hours. When dinner is ready, generally about ten at 
night, the men wash their hands, feet and faces ; then 



144 THE HINDU AT HOME. 

with bare heads and bodies, and dripping hands and feet, 
they repair to the chaiika for their last meal. This is 
dispatched in silence; then they ^ go out and smoke and 
talk for some time longer. 

The range of conversational topics is limited, and 
relates chiefly to business, the prospects of the weather 
and crops, or to neighborly gossip. Sometimes, some 
one will entertain the company with marvelous tales and 
exploits of bygone heroes, which are eagerly swallowed 
and readily believed. The aged patriarch of the family, 
who sits propped up in a comfortable corner, claims the 
right which age and experience are supposed to give, to 
tax the credulity of the company to the utmost. In his 
presence, all must be respectfully silent, for he would 
instantly and severely rebuke even a gesture of dissent. 
Indeed, in these social interludes, he is the presiding 
autocrat, and he waves his sceptre with stern authority. 
The juniors listen with open-mouthed amazement; they 
have not in their experience realized the marvels which 
he narrates, — nor, somehow, can they square these recitals 
with their ideas of /r^j-^;/>' possibilities, — but what matters 
that, — has not the age pitiably deteriorated, so that the 
actuals of a bygone age are beyond the possibles of the 
present ? 

The women enter the chauka when their lords have 
left, and partake of what may remain with the modest con- 
sciousness of intrinsic inferiority. The plates are then 



THE HINDU AT HOME. I45 

rinsed out, and the family retire for the night, commonly 
near midnight. 

This ordinary routine is, of course, often broken in 
upon, and enlivened with incidents, of a more or less 
stirring kind. For example : the family we have selected 
for an illustration, expects a visit from the household 
GtirUy or religious teacher. All families have such an 
attendant, and his visits are stated epochs in their history, 
— pleasant or otherwise, as his manner is genial or acrid. 
The Guru, in the present case, is a sleek, stout, and 
good-humored Brahman, who has the religious care of 
several families in charge. There is a pleasant expection 
when his footfall is upon the threshold, and males, females 
and children, eagerly look for him. 

Here he comes, — important, self-complacent, and won- 
derfully good-humored, for a worshipful deity. For 
apart from the fact of his being a Brahman, his relation 
to the family, as their spiritual guide, places them under 
the obligation to regard him as no whit inferior to their 
guardian deity. Hence, as he enters the door, Mul Raj 
and Fateh Singh, salute him with Pdldgan Maharaj (I 
touch your feet, honored sir) ; after which they, followed 
by all the women and children, actually prostrate them- 
selves at his feet, while the Brahman deigns to put his 
right foot upon their bowed head, saying Jai-ho, Jai-ho, 
(be happy). 

He is then invited to enter, and the host presents him 
7 ^ 



146 THE HINDU AT HOME. 

with tobacco and fire, which he proceeds to smoke in his 
own hooka, — conversing, meanwhile, upon the ordinary 
topics of the day. It is not uncommon for his feet to be 
washed by one of the family, the dirty water being sipped 
all round, while the remainder is carefully preserved. 
Flowers, sweatmeats, etc., are also offered, while he .mut- 
ters unintelligible mantras and incantations, which are 
received with reverent gratitude. 

Preparations are now made for his entertainment. The 
host provides him with the necessary articles from the 
market, on a bountiful scale, which the Brahman prepares 
for himself, in his own vessel. Everything is provided 
for his comfort, and the family wait on him with servile 
reverence. He is then enriched with presents, and sent 
away with the same tokens of worshipful regard. 

The Hindu shastras prescribe the most particular and 
punctilious regard for the Guru, or spiritual guide. 
The disciple must promote and provide in the fullest 
manner for the welfare of his teacher, and that constantly ; 
if he injure him, he will, in another birth, become a worm, 
feeding on ordure. The gitriis son and grandson are 
entitled to the same honor as himself Whatever be his 
circumstances or character, the disciple has no way to 
happiness, but through his guru. Hence, the religious 
Hindu dreads nothing so much as to offend his spiritual 
guide, even to the close of his life. Mr. Ward relates 
the case of one of these Brahmans, who was carried to the 



THE HINDU AT HOME. 14/ 

river side to die. There he was visited by one of his dis- 
ciples, who, being a rich man, asked the dying man if he 
could do anything for him. The gtini asked him for 
100,000 Rupees. The disciple hesitated ; the Brahman 
then enquired what he was worth. The disciple thought 
he might be worth that amount, though it was not all in 
money. The guru then asked him to give his children 
half that sum ; this was surrendered. " Did he want 
anything else?" Why no, — though his younger son, 
then present, did wish for a pair of gold bracelets, very 
much like a child of the disciple, standing by, had on 
his wrist. These were forthwith taken off and transferred 
to the Brahman's son. "Anything else ?" Well — since 
he was good enough to ask, perhaps he would grant a 
certain piece of ground in Calcutta, to the Guru's son. 
This piece of land was worth 20,000 Rs., but it was 
yielded without hesitation. *' Had the Giiru any fur- 
ther wish?" Well, it was really too bad, but would the 
disciple give 5,000 Rs. toward his funeral expenses. 
Very good, and it was done. The next morning, the 
rapacious old Brahman died ; his wife was burnt with 
his body, and thus, according to the shastras, saved his 
soul, for he was a notoriously bad man, while the disciple 
came down with another 5,000 Rs., for the necessary 
expenses. 

Speaking of Brahmans, reminds us of the woeful mis- 
takes which writers, conversant only with the Hindu 



148 THE HINDU AT HOME. 

sacred writings, fall into as to the austerely severe life 
which these men are supposed to lead. One such writer 
remarks that they " are subjected to such severe duties 
that (celibacy excepted) very few Roman Catholic monks 
can bear a comparison with them." Now, as a matter 
of fact, the sacred manuals lay down such a rigid and 
complex system of rules for the conduct of a Brahman's 
life, from the time he receives the Janeo, or sacred thread, 
at the age of eight or nine, to that advanced period of life 
when he is sacredly required to leave all secular cares 
and concerns, and retire to the life of a secluded ascetic, 
that, if strictly and faithfully observed, — supposing it were . 
possible to do so, — his life would be, indeed, a martyrdom 
to a punctilious and self-denying ceremonialism. But 
the modern, every-day Brahman, is as unlike this model 
as his ignorant panegyrists themselves. With a mere 
gloss of extra devotion and piety, he has only the com- 
placency and arrogance of his pretensions. He trades 
and traffics, he rogues and thieves, he eats prodigiously ; 
he does not spend years at the feet of a Vedic Gamaliel ; 
he knows very little — if at all — of his sacred writings, 
besides a few unmeaning formularies for puja ; he does 
not retire into solitude, in advanced age, for meditation 
and prayer, but continues to the close of life, the same 
self-righteous and sordid sacerdotalist that he ever 
was ! 

But stop ! there is a burst of unusual joy in our typical 



THE HINDU AT HOME. I49 

Hindu home. The wife of Fateh Singh has presented 
him with a son, and there is mirth and rejoicing and con- 
gratulation. In expectation of the event, Ganesh was 
worshipped as the deity of domestic prosperity, and a 
cocoanut, betelnut and some batdsJias placed in the 
expected mother's lap, in token of congratulation. As 
the momentous event approached, hope, surmise and 
augury were all anxiously busy to determine whether 
the coming child should be an auspicious son or a luck- 
less daughter. The Kshatriyas were the tribe, who, in for- 
mer days, destroyed their daughters, and the practice is 
not wholly extinct yet. The anxiety of the parents and 
friends may thus be conceived, — as also their exultation 
and joy, when it is announced that the babe born, is 
indeed, a son ! Relations and friends drop in and pour 
their congratulations in rich libations. The women 
gather together and express their joy in songs, keeping 
time upon a dlibl, or small drum. The hero of the hour 
is washed, smeared plentifully with oil, but not clothed 
until the sixth day. Superstitions of various kinds are 
practiced to ward off evil influences, especially, to keep 
off the dreaded " evil eye." 

The family priest, who is also the astrologer, now 
comes in and pretends to tell the child's future, its age 
and the balance of happiness and misery before it. 
Of course, he is to have a long life, and is to be 
eminently prosperous. Ganesh and the planets are then 



150 THE HINDU AT HOME. 

worshipped, and presents are distributed to Brahmans 
and to friends. 

On the third day, the mother is assisted into the yard 
with the child in her lap. With her face to the sun, she 
worships, drops a few grains of barley and retires. On 
the sixth day, there is an important ceremony. An arrow 
is put into the mother's hand, with which, bearing the 
child in her lap, she appears in the yard ; then, as she 
retires, the arrow is shot upwards toward the roof The 
mother bathes on this day and is supposed to be purified, 
and there is great rejoicing and feasting. It is believed 
that the child's fortune is now inscribed upon its forehead 
by a deity. On the tenth or eleventh day, there is a sol- 
emn worship of Ganesh and the planets, and then the 
little hero is solemnly named Kuar Singh. On the 
twenty-seventh day, water is procured from twenty-seven 
wells, and leaves of twenty-seven different kinds are put 
into a small earthen jug of twenty-seven tubes, specially 
manufactured for the ceremony. Incense having been 
burned, the parents with the child sit under a blanket 
awning, while the water from the earthen jug is poured 
upon the blanket, and filtering through it, wets the child 
and its parents. They then bathe in separate places and 
change their clothes. This most singular ceremony is 
evidently one of final purification, although its exact 
import is not known. 

Such are the natal ceremonies commonly practiced 



THE HINDU AT HOME. I 5 I 

among the Hindus. There is another ceremony, when, 
at the age of six months, the child first tastes other food 
than the mother's milk. The mother, however, is in no 
hurry to wean the child, and it is not uncommon to see 
a boy, three years old, hanging upon the mother's breast. 
The child grows, and being a son, and the first-born 
child, is petted and caressed by the whole family. It is 
literally loaded with jewels. Heavy bracelets of gold, a 
necklace of asliarfis or gold mohurs, armlets with sun- 
dry charms upon the arms, silver bells and rings upon 
the ankles, with a chain of silver upon its hips, are the 
usual adornments of a child, born in these circumstances. 
Of clothing, it has at home little or none. It is this 
which makes Hindu children objects of criminal cupidity 
to the wicked and designing. It is quite common for 
children with jewels on their persons, to be lured away 
from their friends; at vicias or fairs, and to be murdered 
for the sake of their jewels. Sometimes, the barbarity is 
perpetrated for the veriest trifle. Quite lately, a poor 
*girl, eight years old, who had jewels to the amount of 
only four Rupees on her person, was decoyed away by an 
old woman, scaling grass in an out-of-the-way place. 
When all alone, the girl was thrown down and brutally 
hacked at the throat, with the not very sharp iron 
scraper, until believed to be dead. The jewels were 
taken off and the body dragged to a jackal's den 
and thrust into it. Strangely the fresh earth stanched 



152 THE HINDU AT HOME. 

the blood, and in a few hours the girl, recovering con- 
sciousness, was able to drag herself along to a village, 
where she related her story. The ruffianly butcheress 
was arrested and was on trial for her life, when I left 
India. 

The boy grows up and begins to articulate. This is 
an occasion of great joy, and that joy reaches its culmina- 
tion when the young prodigy treats its father and grand- 
father to a full-mouthed volley of filthy abuse. This is 
the signal for positive jubilation; the parents and friends 
clap their hands and shout for joy; indeed, their delight 
quite equals the satisfaction with which I have seen 
parents boasting of Christian culture applaud the tossing 
off, without choking, of the first glass of wine by their chil- 
dren. The little Hindu very early learns to puff at the 
hooka, and it is not uncommon to see him swing back 
and forth from his mother's breast to his pipe. Caressed, 
petted and humored by every one, if little Kuar Singh 
does not follow in the long line of domestic tyrants 
known as " spoiled children," it will certainly not be' 
through neglect of pains in his early education ! 

Dark threads mingle with the bright in weaving the 
chequered web of the Hindu home as of any other, and 
there is sorrow and mourning in our typical household. 
What is the matter ? Messengers have arrived from the 
Sasurdr (husband's father's house) of Rukminee, the 
eight year old sister, with sorrowful news. Her boy hus- 



THE HINDU AT HOME. 153 

band is no more ! Stricken with cholera in its most 
virulent form, in a few hours disease culminated in death. 
As the village in which he resides is more than a hun- 
dred miles distant, the funeral ceremonies have long 
since been performed. It was impossible to communi- 
cate the sad intelligence in time to allow of the attend- 
ance of any of Mul Raj's household, even if this were 
otherwise possible. 

And so Rukminee is a widow, without being a wife ! 
A widow at eight ! Strange, ridiculously strange, yet 
solemnly sad. But how ? Surely, there could be no 
room for much, if indeed any, personal attachment 
between two mere children who saw each other for a few 
hours but once in their lives ? Ah! no ; that is not the 
reason for the wailing and the lamentation which resound 
through the bereaved household. There is really little 
love lost in the bereavement, nor had the household any 
pecuniary or other expectations which have now been 
blighted. Whence, then, this burst of grief, this desola- 
tion of woe? Ah, that crushing word, widozv / Sad 
enough anywhere, to the Hindu it means the extinguish- 
ment of joy and hope and happiness. It is not merely 
an eclipse, it is total and perpetual darkness. Young as 
the widow might be, — a child indeed, — she may never, 
in the higher castes, be joined to another man. More 
than this, her position in the household is degraded and 
humiliating to the last degree. The calamity w^hich has 
7* 



154 THE HINDU AT HOME. 

befallen her is believed to be a just retribution for serious 
misdeeds in a previous birth,^hence she is shunned and 
spurned even by her own relatives as morally plague- 
smitten. From the lofty position of a cherished wife, 
she now descends to the dark dungeon of social and 
moral ostracism, and in this dungeon there glimmers not 
a ray of hope ; her future life is a long course of unmiti- 
gated misery. 

External conditions harmonize grimly with the 
actual facts. The long tresses of hair, — a woman's 
pride, are shorn without mercy ; the jewellery and other 
ornaments in which she was bedecked while a wife, are all 
taken away, the gaily colored cimnri in which she was 
arrayed is exchanged for sombre habiliments, — nor may 
she ever attire herself attractively again. The darkest 
corner of the house becomes her retreat, the most 
servile service her employment. Thus bereaved of hope 
and stripped of all that made life bright and joyful, she 
drags on her days in a living entombment until death 
comes to the rescue; or worse, — she breaks through the 
bars of this sepulchre to plunge into the gaping jaws of 
a living perdition. For beneath the dungeon of enforced 
widowhood, smoke the fires of a relentless Gehenna, and 
many a poor woman, branded an outcast by this deadly 
custom, becomes a prey to the crafty priest or the 
designing Brahman. Is it any wonder that the Hindu 
widow rushed from such a fate to the sati fire, when 



THE HINDU AT HOME. 1 55 

that fire promised not only quick deliverance from the 
woes of widowhood, but certain admission for her hus- 
band and herself into the highest heaven ? The British 
Government have stopped the crackling of the sati fire, 
but the dungeon gates of enforced widowhood still creak 
upon their rusted hinges, while below the Gehenna of 
moral ruin smokes and burns consuming its victims, body 
and soul, in swift destruction. There are intelligent 
Hindus to-day who seriously deprecate the action of 
the British Government, because it deprives the Hindu 
widow of a quick, and to her, honorable, release from her 
misery and degradation ; while they take no measures to 
save her from the protracted tortures of enforced widow- 
hood. 

What is the prolific parent of all this misery? The 
pernicious system of child marriage undoubtedly. A 
girl from the time she is able to speak or think, is edu- 
cated to think of marriage as her highest, her only end 
in life. She cannot conceive of life without it ; it is the 
sumtnum boiitmi of her earthly existence. Yet this all 
important event is one of mere childish curiosity and 
interest to her. She is utterly incapable of comprehend- 
ing its solemn import, nor has she any right of judgment 
or opinion in an event which concerns all her future life. 
Married she must be and that as quickly as possible ; 
and if perchance her matrimonial engagement is not satis- 
factorily and speedily adjusted, her parents regard her as 



156 THE HINDU AT HOME. 

a luckless encumbrance, and do not fail to make her feel 
her position keenly. 

A wail from twenty millions of Hindu widows — worse 
than dead — ^pours its requiem of desolation and sorrow 
in the ear of Christendom, while trembling swarthy 
hands appear above the billows of moral and social death, 
supplicating help, ere they sink forever in the swirling 
vortex. Who will hear and hasten to the rescue ? If a 
signal of distress be made from yon rocky shoal, if but a 
single hand be seen uplifted to succour help, a hundred 
brawny arms would pull through the raging surf at emi- 
nent hazard of life, rather than that endangered one 
should sink unsuccoured. Yet here is a cry from help- 
less millions for succour ! Oh ! let it not be lost in faint 
and yet fainter echoes, and the hands that now implore 
your Christian help be locked in the ghastly grip of 
moral and eternal death. 

What is the remedy for this crushing, gigantic evil ? 
The remedy must necessarily be two-fold, — destructive 
and constructive. Legislation, state legislation, arm-in-arm 
with a regenerated public sentiment, must hew this mam- 
moth custom to the ground. Yea, the axe is already laid 
at the root of the deadly Upas tree, and India is awaken- 
ing to the evils of this horrible and unnatural supersti- 
tion. But when the tree falls, it will be with a reverbera- 
tion that will shake and rend Hindu society to its founda- 
tion. That society must then be reconstructed upon 



THE HINDU AT HOME. I57 

another model, — the model of Christian grace and culture, 
or the last end will be worse than the first. It is this 
constructive work which calls for the noble and devoted 
followers of the Phebes and Priscillas and Julias of 
apostolic times. Thank God for those who have gone 
forth and are even now in the van of the fight ; hold up 
their hands, ye Christian men and women of America, with 
your prayers and sympathies, and make haste to reinforce 
their all too slender ranks, lest they utterly faint in the 
gathering battle. 

But we must return to the home life of our typical 
Hindu. A religion so objective and sensuous as that of 
the Hindus could not subsist without constantly feeding 
the popular craving for the religiously sensational. Hence 
their numerous tdiwdrs^ or feast days, with their attend- 
ant Melas, or religio-festive gatherings. These are 
indeed legion, and differ with race, dialect and locality. 
Each god has its celebration, — the favored ones claiming 
conspicuous attention and homage. The different seasons 
again are greeted with special demonstrations, and are 
made occasions of particular jubilation and religious cele- 
bration. A favorite telrtvdr of the Hindus is the Holi 
Festival, held at the spring-tide of the year. At this 
season, when the rigors of winter are yielding to the 
genial warmth of spring-dawn, when the trees are putting 
on their fresh mantle of green, and the flowers are burst- 
ing into bloom and the birds into song, — when the wav- 



158 THE HINDU AT HOME. 

ing corn-fields are shaking their tassels of gold for the 
reapers scythe, the Hindu prepares for the gay carnival ^ 
of the Holi festival. Of course, there are signs and 
sounds of joyous preparation in our Hindu household. 
The children are arrayed in their best, — even the seniors 
are forward with gayest habiliments. A large shamea?zah 
or canvas pavilion is reared in front of the house for a 
dancing party, and is illuminated with glass burners and 
chandeliers. 

The festival arrives, and the days pass joyfully in 
promenading the city streets, where the children are 
indulged with sweets, toys and playthings, visiting and 
receiving visits, and other merriments. The nights are 
spent at the nautches, or dancing parties, which are main- 
tained often at considerable expense. 

The Hindu's views on dancing are antipodal to the 
Europeans. No respectable Hindu would dream of being 
associated with this exercise, save as a spectator, and as 
for his wife, daughter and sister figuring in the "graceful 
maze," — why the idea is simply inconceivable. The 
dancing girls are a distinct class and usually of avowedly 
irregular life. They are hired, sometimes at considerable 
expense, for these occasional performances. Not unfre- 
quently, these girls are notably pretty and graceful in 
person ; some are possessed of singular beauty. They are 
not only dancers but singers, and their quality and value 
are judged of by their looks, and their vocal and dancing 



THE HINDU AT HOME. 1 59 

ability. Gaily arrayed in silks and tinsel, with tinkling 
bells at the feet, usually two girls perform at the same 
time, singing to the accompaniment of violins and gui- 
tars, while the dJiolak not only keeps time, but gives 
expression to the whole. The dancing is io unlike the 
European notion of the movements of the " light fantas- 
tic toe," that no description can convey a just idea of the 
performance. Suffice it to say that it consists as much 
of postures and attitudes and gestures, as of movements 
and gyrations; the object being to act out the most 
wanton emotions which a lawless passion can produce. 
Altogether, the performance is impure and demoralizing; 
and is oftentimes the theatre of the most indecorous 
scenes. At the Holi festival such dancing parties abound ; 
huge scaffoldings are erected upon which taifas of danc- 
ing girls perform in view of multitudes ; while pleasure 
boats glide up and down the river with dancing parties 
in full swing. 

But this is not the worst feature of this carnival. Inter- 
twined with the joyful celebration of the spring harvest, 
is the commemoration of the lewd and wanton sportings 
of the popular god Krishna, and right worthily are the 
doings of this deified debauchee celebrated. The vilest 
obscenities are publicly sung in the streets, and the most 
indecent signs and gestures indulged in without restraint 
or shame. Respectable. women dare not pass through 
the streets. Indeed, until lately even European ladies 



l60 THE HINDU AT HOME. 

were assaulted with the most ribald and obscene effusions. 
The last day or two of this festival are a perfect Baccha- 
nalian Saturnalia. A red pigment with powdered talc are 
cast upon every passer by, and squirted in a liquid state 
upon the clothes and person. To see huge gangs of men 
reeling along, mad with the frenzy of voluptuous revelry, 
some indeed drunk with intoxicating drink ; all drenched, 
face, hands and clothes, by the vile dye, — singing aloud 
the most obscene ribaldries, — ^presents a scene as like 
Pandemonium as it is possible to behold in this world. 
And yet this is the most joyous Hindu tehwdr, and is 
religiously observed as the most fitting and acceptable 
commemoration of the amorous exploits of Krishna, the 
popular incarnation of Vishnu ! 

The festival has come and gone, andMul Raj's house- 
hold has returned to the prose of every-day life. There 
is, however, a dark shadow upon the threshold. The 
old patriarch, the father of Mul Raj and Fateh Singh, is 
sick, and it is evident that he must die. There is no 
extraordinary solicitude evident on this account, however; 
the sons regard the impending event as a kind of necessity, 
preordained and inevitable. The old man himself, now 
very feeble, is scarcely more concerned. Death is merely 
the gate through which the soul passes from one organ- 
ism to another, and therefore awakens but little anxiety 
or concern, especially in the case of the aged and infirm. 

Poor old man, he grov/s feebler and feebler, and 



THE HINDU AT HOME. l6l 

his sons bear him out fiHally to the bank of the sacred 
Ganga to die. There he is laid upon a stretcher, under 
an awning to shield him from the scorching sun, while 
the Ganga water is poured into his mouth, with some 
leaves of the sacred Tiilshi, and the image of some god 
is laid on his breast. Soon the "vital spark " expires and 
the funeral rites begin. Mul Raj, as the eldest son, is 
the person upon whom devolves the duty of conducting 
these ceremonies. He makes a ball of barley-dough and 
puts it into the right hand of the corpse. This is for the 
present and immediate sustenance of the disembodied soul 
or preta. The body is then wound in some clean linen, 
placed on a bamboo bier, and carried by four men to the 
burning place beside the river, while the friends and rela- 
tives follow, crying ''Rama^Rama, Sathai f' (Ram is true). 
Arrived at the burning^/!^/,the corpse is laid down, with 
its feet to the south. It is now bathed, and some gold and 
clarified butter having been put in the mouth, it is placed 
upon the funeral pile. Mul Raj now has his head and 
face shaved, all save the single lock upon his head, and 
sets fire to the pile. When the body is about half con- 
sumed, some gJice is poured on the head, which is then 
deliberately shattered with bamboos. The fire is quenched 
with the Ganga water, and the body is thrown into the 
river. After some trifling ceremonies, the funeral party 
bathe, chew the bitter leaves of the Neeni, and return 
home. 



l62 THE HINDU AT HOME. 

Mul Raj must sleep on the ground and touch no one 
in the family for eleven days, while the entire household 
must live for the same period on austere fare. Then fol- 
low the important rites called Srdddhas, the purport of 
which will be understood by a little explanation. When 
a man dies, his gross body is burned, and, according to 
the Hindu belief, his soul remains hovering near the 
burning ground, longing to depart, but unable to do so 
for want of a suitable vehicle or body. In this condition 
it is a restless and foul ghost ; and if left thus would 
wander to and fro disposed to avenge itself by malignant 
acts upon all living creatures. The object of the Sradd- 
has is to supply this restless and unhappy ghost with a suit- 
able body in which it can pass on to its next destination. 

Hence Mul Raj, as the eldest son and principal 
mourner, offers to the preta, or spirit, a pinda, or round 
ball of barley-flour, with libations of water, daily, from 
the first day after the funeral till the tenth. These are 
believed to contribute in framing the desired vehicle or 
body. On the tenth day, he takes all these to the river, 
and cooking some milk and rice, rolls all up in balls, and 
with libations of milk and water, offers all with incense 
to the spirit, which, having now received a complete 
envelopment, becomes a pitri, and is practically wor- 
shipped by the family. 

On the eleventh day, the Maha Brahman, who has 
control of funeral rites, is invited to the house. Mul 



THE HlxNDU AT HOME. • 163 

Raj now washes his feet, puts a mark upon h's forehead, 
and makes a variety of presents to the Brahman, after 
which he once more mingles with his friends and relatives. 
The ceremony of offering libations of food to deceased 
ancestors is, however, continued at stated intervals, so as 
to facilitate their passing without let or hindrance upon 
their onward way, through the various stages of the inter- 
minable passage of transmigration. 

The days pass, and the revolving seasons bring their 
appointed festive days of more or less importance. The 
next cherished festival is the Rdni lila celebration, which 
usually takes place in the month of October. It is 
enacted with representations of the exploits of Rama 
Chandra, the king of Ayodhya. The abduction of Sita, 
Rama's wife, by Ravana, the giant king of Lanka (Ceylon), 
the assault of Rama, wherein he is aided by Haninndii^ 
the monkey general, the ultimate victory of Rama and 
the destruction of Ravana, are all set forth in a series of 
coarse dramatic representations, extending over several 
days, and terminating with the blowing up of Ravana. 
Each city has its representation, — the larger ones, three or 
four. They are attended by multitudes of both old and 
young, as the centre of a vast amount of fun and merry- 
making. Sweetmeat and toy-venders spread their allure- 
ments for the young, while stalls and booths of finery and 
tinsel attract the women. 

Almost cotemporaneously, with the Ram lila, in the 



164 THE HINDU AT HOME. 

northern provinces, is the Durga piija, or worship of 
Durga, in lower Bengal. It is intended to commemorate 
the victory of the sanguinary Durga, over the buffalo- 
headed demon, Mahishdshar. Her image is worshipped 
with much pomp, for nine days, and then cast into the 
water. The tenth day is called Dasahm^a. Close upon 
the heel of the Ram lila, follows the Devdli festival, in 
honor of Vishnu's wife, Lakshmi, and Shiva's wife, 
Pdrvati. It is to an outsider, the most sensible of the 
Hindu festivals. Every house is cleaned up, and if pos- 
sible whitewashed and otherwise decorated, and in the 
night, each habitation is illuminated according to the 
means of the owner. Some are splendidly lit up, while 
the poorest will set out a few oil lamps. Earthen 
toys and sweatmeats, moulded in the form of beasts and 
birds, abound, and altogether the bazaar puts on its 
brightest gala dress. But even this cheerful and glitter- 
ing festival has its dark side, for the Devdli night is given 
up to systematic and universal gambling. This is not only 
a stimulating, pastime, but a religious requirement. While, 
therefore, the orthodox gamble religiously, the ragged 
liberals take one step further, and devote the night to 
thieving and house-breaking. Hence, on Devali night, 
notwithstanding its illumination and brightness, special 
vigilance must be maintained against knaves and rogues 
of all degrees, from the daring burglar to the juvenile 
pick-pocket. 



THE HINDU AT HOME. 1 65 

But to return to our Hindu home : — Chameli, the 
daughter of Mul Raj is now over seven years old, and 
her parents are anxiously solicitous for an early and 
advantageous " settlement " for her. They regard this 
as their most pressing and sacred duty, the neglect of 
which would expose them to ruinous disgrace. Hence, 
serious conference is held among the members of the 
household and their immediate friends, resulting in the 
nomination of an " eligible candidate '' for matrimonial 
honors in the person of a bright boy of nine, named 
Jdiiki, the son of respectable and well-to-do Kshatriyas, 
resident in the same city. The match appearing in every 
way desirable and suitable, the horoscope of the young 
couple is compared, — of course, with very gratifying 
results. It is remarkable how accommodating domestic 
astrology is in such cases, and with what good nature 
the stars combine to predict a prosperous future for those 
intending to mate. 

And now the initiative ceremony, that of the Tika, 
takes place. Mul Raj, despatches the family priest and 
barber with a brass dish, a cocoanut and present in money 
and jewels, to the father of the bridegroom elect. They 
are received with much respect by old Jawahir Sing, who 
invites all his friends and relations to meet the messen- 
gers ; and in the presence of all, they plant the tika, or 
marriage dot upon the forehead of the bridegroom elect. 
The boy's father presents alms to the Brahmans, sweet- 



1 66 THE HINDU AT HOME, 

meats and balls of cocoanuts to his friends ; and after 
cordially entertaining the visitors from the bride's home, 
dismisses them with presents of money and clothes. 

They bring a favorable, nay flattering account of their 
reception to Mul Raj, who next calls for the lagan from 
the family priest. The lagan is a calendar of auspicious 
dates for the performance of the ceremonies which are to 
follow. A copy of this programme of dates is rolled up 
with a couple of betel-nuts, some turmeric, a little dry 
rice and two pice, and tied with yellow thread ; this 
packet is sent to Jawahir Sing by the hand of the family 
barber, with a silver coin and some barley. On receipt 
of this, the old man prepares to act upon the directions 
of the calendar, — despatching invitations to his relatives 
and friends. 

At length the auspicious day arrives. Busy, joyous 
and costly preparations are made in the home of the 
bride. The whole house is cleansed, and whitewashed 
and decorated. A pavilion is pitched outside at some 
distance from the entrance, where the bridal party are to 
be entertained. The necessary provisions for the regale- 
ment of the guests are made on a scale not only unstinted 
but lavish, while nautches, or dancing parties, and Bhands 
or buffoons, are engaged for their entertainment. In the 
centre of the inner courtyard, a small shed, called the 
inaraya, is erected upon five posts, one of which is in the 
centre : this is for the immediate marriage ceremonies. 



THE HINDU AT HOME. 167 

Of course, all the family are arrayed in gay and glit- 
tering habiliments, — all save the child-widow, Riikminee. 
The little bride, who is jubilant in expectation of the 
great fun before her-, is arrayed in a rich robe of gay 
colors, with a cJiaddar drawn over her youthful face. Of 
course, she is plentifully adorned with jewels and tinsel. 
The whole household indeed is suitably bedecked to 
receive the bridal party expected at night. 

Hark ! the silence is suddenly broken by the braying 
of trumpets, and the roll of drums. Then there bursts 
upon the darkness the gleam of light from scores of 
torches. The bardt, or marriage procession is at hand ! 
Preceded by loud and clashing music, and taifas of 
nautcJics upon scaffolding borne upon men's shoulders, a 
long procession of elephants, camels, horses, baJilis and 
7'aths follow, bearing the bridegroom, his relations, friends 
and supporters. 

In the middle of the procession is the youthful bride- 
groom, arrayed in a long flowing robe reaching to his 
feet, with a high cupola-like hat glistening with tinsel. 
He is literally weighed down with garlands of the odor- 
ous bcyla^ and is mounted upon a heavy, but richly-capari- 
soned horse. The procession is closed by hundreds of 
unwashed, staring idlers, who follow upon the heels of 
every loud demonstration for the fun of the thing. 

As the banit nears the bride's house, the trumpets 
bray louder, the drums roll more vociferously, the torches 



1 68 THE HINDU AT HOME. 

flash higher, while muskets and fireworks are let off with 
hiss and bang, so as to make every variety of noise and 
as much of it as possible. This is the very crisis of the 
demonstration, and enthusiasm rises to its utmost pitch 
in the endeavor to make a striking thing of it. That 
useful functionary, the family barber, is sent on ahead 
with offerings. 

And now the procession being at the door, Mul Raj 
and Fateh Singh, with their friends and kindred, come 
forth to greet it. At the same time, the entrance door 
is plastered with that sacred unguent — cow-dung, — and 
worship is offered to Ganesh and other deities. Mul 
Raj touches the feet of the young bridegroom, as a token 
of respect, puts a mark upon his forehead, and makes 
costly presents of money, clothes and jewels. The bar at 
now retires to the pavilion pitched outside, where it is 
entertained with nautches, bhands, etc. Here the bride's 
young brother washes the feet of the bridegroom and of 
his brother, while sherbet, a cool beverage, is presented 
to them and their friends. 

When the auspicious moment arrives, the bridegroom 
and his friends are invited into the inner courtyard, where 
the temporary shed has been erected. The bridegroom's 
feet are again washed, after which he gets something to 
eat. Mul Raj, after bestowing alms, now brings two 
pieces of yellow linen ; with one of these the girl covers 
herself, the other is joined to the bridegroom's robe. A 



THE HINDU AT HOME. 1 69 

palm plume, having touched an image of Ganesh, is 
bound to the bride's head. The priests on both sides 
now solemnly bless the bride and bridegroom, after which 
they (the priests) receive presents. 

The hand of the bride is now put into the right hand 
of the bridegroom after some curious ceremonies, and 
the upper garments of both being knotted together, they 
are made to sit together, the bride to the right of the 
bridegroom with her face to the east. 

A small altar is built between the centre post of the 
shed and the bride and bridegroom, upon which incense 
is burned, and piija offered to the gods. They are then 
covered over for a few minutes with a sheet, while a few 
trifling ceremonies are gone through. Then Mul Raj 
puts his daughter's hand into Janki's, and they walk 
round the altar and the centre post several times. This 
ceremony, which is called the Chotmri, completes the 
marriage bond. 

Pledges of mutual love and fidelity are then exchanged, 
which Vishnu, fire and the Brahmans are solemly invoked 
to attest. Thus the bridegroom of nine and the bride of 
seven undertake the most sacred obligations without any 
conception of their weight or import. The bridegroom 
then sprinkles some water upon the bride's head, and 
both bow before the sun in worship. After this the bride- 
groom places his hand upon the bride's heart, while the 
priests put marks upon the foreheads of both, and finally 
8 



1^0 THE HINDU AT HOME. 

blessing them, receive their dues. After receiving the 
presents of the bride's mother and the other ladies, the bride 
and bridegroom go out into the pavilion where the 
bardt is being entertained. For two or three days, the 
marriage procession is feasted, then respectfully dis- 
missed. 

Little Chameli and her boy husband go with the bardt. 
She is accompanied by her little brother and some, other 
female relatives, — nevertheless she weeps bitterly as she 
leaves for the first time the home of her childhood. In 
a palanquin, the married couple are conveyed to their 
new home with the singing of gay nuptial songs by the 
women friends. Entering the door, after some supersti- 
tious ceremonies to keep off evil influence, /?^<^ is per- 
formed, and then their knot is loosened. 

After a few days, Chameli returns to her parental home, 
where she stays until five years have passed. Then a 
simple ceremony, called the gauna is performed, and she 
is finally sent to her new home, and takes up the duties 
oi2. gihrast.m subjection to the matrons of her husband's 
household, — occasionally returning to her parents, but 
for short periods only. 

Meanwhile life moves on in its appointed groove. 
Months, seasons, years go by ; successes and reverses 
alternate ; the sun of life glides noiselessly toward the 
horizon, while the dark cloud of old age and bodily 
infirmity streak the sky. Even Hindu stolidity and 



THE HINDU AT HOME. I7I 

insensibility cannot wholly smother the voice of the soul 
in its anxious clamorings with regard to the future. Mul 
Raj and Fateh Singh are becoming old men ; those who 
once were children are in the prime of life, while there 
are childish voices and pattering of little feet in the old 
house that a few years ago were not. The hand-writing 
upon the walls of the inner sanctuary, inscribing the 
stern fiat of mortal doom becomes more distinct, and 
constrains even the deluded and dreamy Hindu to con- 
front the future. This future is very dark and confused, 
yet the old men feel that something beyond the ordinary 
routine of ptija and dan are necessary. They have con- 
, structed wells for travelers ; bathing glints for religious 
worshippers ; dJiaruisdlas for devotees -AXidi fakirs . They 
have given alms and fed Brahmans. All these, they are 
assured are works of merit, which are sure to be of avail 
in the day of ultimate reckoning ; yet they do not bring 
any comfort to the soul, any healing to " a mind diseased." 
To achieve something of transcending meritoriousness 
is now their aim. After consultation with the family 
guru, it is determined to hold a public reading of some 
portion of the sacred writings. This act is one of super- 
lative value and excellence, conferring upon the donors 
untold spiritual reward. The Shri Bhagavata is chosen 
as the text ; a pavilion capable of holding about a thous- 
and persons is erected, with an extended dais for the 
Brahmans and readers ; and a number of learned pandits 



1/2 THE HINDU AT HOME. 

are invited. With imposing ceremonials, the reading is 
opened and proceeds from day to day in the hearing of 
many hundreds of eager Hsteners. The recitation with 
the customary comments takes a whole month, entailing 
immense trouble and enormous expense upon the zealous 
projectors. On the last day there is a special puja and 
then a general feasting of the Brahmans, who are as usual 
generously appreciative of such attentions. 

And now all is over ; the multitudes have dispersed^ and 
Mul Raj and Fateh Singh are returning home at dusk 
from the deserted pavilion. There is an obvious reac- 
tion from the busy excitement and enthusiasm. At such 
times, the soul — hushed before, — must speak, and its , 
utterance is in the language of universal humanity. 

" A very successful performance," observes Fateh 
Singh. 

" Yes," replies the elder brother, " but what, after all, is 
its value ? " 

" Do not the Brahmans say that there is wondrous 
efficacy of merit in the act ? " 

" Yes, they say so, and I suppose it is true ; but it is 
strange that the man (mind) is none the lighter or 
happier." . 

" True," assents the younger brother, "nor is there any 
cleansing of this KanibakJit (unfortunate) spirit from the 
pollution of evil. This mail ka kit (corrosion of filthi- 
ness) is just as deep and black as ever." 




CO 
UJ 

cc 
< 

z 

LU 



THE HINDU AT HOME. 1 73 

At this moment, there comes the sound of sinorinCT 



fc>^"jD 



from the centre of the crowd over the way : 

" Jo pdpi Yishu kane awe 
Yishu hai wdki innkti karaiya /" 

(" Whatever sinner comes to Jesus, Jesus gives to him 
salvation ! ") 

Stepping across the street, they stand at the outer 
edge of the crowd, in the centre of which, a humble 
preacher of the gospel is lifting up the Redeemer before 
the multitude: 

" Ai turn logo, jo tliakc aiir bare bojh se dabe ho, sabmere 
pas ao, ki main tiunJicii ardin diinga!' 

(" Come unto me, all ye weary and heavy laden, and I 
will give you rest.") 

The preacher plainly and lovingly sets forth Christ as 
a Saviour from sin and care and sorrow, — dwelling upon 
his wondrous love and sacrifice and sympathy, — and 
then, like a faithful witness for his Master, testifies of His 
power in His own salvation. His words, though not in 
human cunning or wisdom, are with convincing earnest- 
ness and power. While some deride and others mock, 
there are two present at least, who feel that the words 
they have heard have answered the deep and burning 
questions of the soul. 

They walk home in silence, — those two brothers, — 
absorbed in thought. We leave them here ;— leave them, 
wondering whether the good seed just dropped, has been 



1 74 



THE HINDU AT HOME. 



merely food for the birds of the air, or the germs of 
eternal life in the soul ; — leave them, praying that the 
unnumbered thousands of just such anxious spirits, — 
knocking to-day with knuckles bruised and bleeding at 
the gate of spiritual illumination, — may be led to Him 
who is the Way, the Truth and the Life. 

The Hindu at home! View him at a distance with his 
strange mummeries of worship, with his caste bigotries, 
with his degrading superstitions ! The Hindu woman ! 
View her at a distance in her benighted ignorance, her 
helpless and servile dependence, her almost soulless 
stolidity ! The Hindu child ! View it at a distance, in 
its squalor and filth and nakedness ; — yes, view them at 
a distance, and you stagger at the spectacle as though it 
were scarcely human, and your voice falters as you ask, 
'' Can these bones live ? " 

But get closer, closer; look upon them with eyes tear- 
ful with compassion; hear their cry with ears attent in 
pity, and you will find that they are your brothers and 
sisters, with strong claims upon your help and succour. 
Yea, get closer still, and look upon them with the Eye 
of incarnated compassion, and feel for them with the Heart 
that brake for their salvation, and you will find your 
heart grow warm with love, and your arm nerve with 
strong determination, and your hope for their regenera- 
tion rise, until it shall grasp the horn of intercession with 
a confidence that — / 



THE HINDU AT HOME. ly^ . 

" Laughs at impossibilities, 
And cries, — it shall be done ! " 

In India, I have seen the boy rescued from the den of 
a ravening wolf Carried away when but a sucking babe, 
it has been nourished and reared by the fierce animal. 
Years have passed, and the huntsman in the jungle is 
startled at beholding the strange spectacle of a being, 
human in appearance, yet utterly brutish in manner and 
habit and taste. With difficulty it is seized and rescued. 
Tied up with strong chains, see how it writhes and foams 
and tears its bonds. Its language, a wild, savage and 
inarticulate howl ; its outward form, slouched, bowed, 
loathsome ; its habits, cruel, bloodthirsty, brutish ! 

Ah ! but within that ungainh', unpromising casket, 
dwells a latent mind, throbs a slumbering soul. Approach 
it with kindness and hopefulness, water the germ of mind 
with the tears of sympathy and pity, and it will yet 
bloom into the grateful and odorous plant of self con- 
scious intelligence. Those lips grown thick with brutish 
carnage, shall yet open to utter words of pleasing and 
coherent sound ; those eyes in which the fierce gleam of 
savagery alone survives the death of all other expression, 
shall yet burn and kindle with heaven-born emotions. 
Ah ! yes, there is a man hidden beneath that mask of 
brutish ferocity ; tear open the mask, and the man shall 
stand before you in the fullness and freedom of his 
divinely implanted powers. 



176 THE HINDU AT HOME, 

Ah ! brothors, turn from the striking figure to the still 
more striking fact ! Beneath the mask of heathenism, 
beneath the superstitions and idolatries, the unnatural and 
cruel customs, the senseless and degrading ceremonies of 
the Hindu, beats a human heart, throbs a human soul ! 
Made in the likeness of God, redeemed with the blood 
of Jesus, destined for the glories of heaven, he is capable 
of renovation and restoration, yea, of glorious transfigura- 
tion in the image of God ! His heart may become the 
mirror of truth and purity, his soul the furnace of divine 
love, his lips the fountain of praise and thanksgiving. 
God hath proclaimed the possibility, — nay, more, procured 
the means necessary and adequate to secure the glorious 
consummation. Shall human hearts and hands co-op- 
erate to bring this to actual realization ? Standing at the 
door of the temple of spiritual liberty and life, and waving 
its hand to the lost and benighted of India, the Spirit 
saith, " Come ! " ; shall the bride, the blood-bought church 
of Christ, in the ready consecration of her treasures and 
her talents, her toils and her prayers, say " Come? " And 
shall he who heareth, upon whose ear the Master's call 
to forsake all and follow him, falls for the first time, or 
perchance, resisted before, sounds again with divine 
authority, — putting his hand to the gospel plough, and 
determined never to look back, — echo-, " Come ? " '' Even 
so, come Lord Jesus, quickly," and claim thy blood- 
bought possession for thyself. Amen. 



V. 

Mission Mosaics. 



" If ever I see a Hindu converted to Jesus Christ, I 
shall see something more nearly approaching the resur- 
rection of a dead body than anything I have ever yet seen." 
Thus spake the devout Henry Martyn, a chaplain of the 
East India Ecclesiastical Establishment, at the beginning 
of this century. In our day a native paper (the Indo 
Prakash, of Bombay), whose very existence is a triumph 
of missionary enlightenment, thus writes: "We daily 
see Hindus of every caste becoming Christians and devoted 
missionaries of the Cross." 

That a p-reat revolution has taken place is evident, but 

is this to be wondered at ? Certainly not. When the 

mighty leverage of that engine which in its earliest days 

had the reputation of "turning the world upside down," 

is applied to uproot superstition and error, it is no wonder 

that the mighty fabric quakes and totters. The whole 

matter is solved in a single sentence, '^The gospel of 

Christ is the pcnver of God unto salvation." 

8* M 177 



1/8 MISSION MOSAICS. 

This gospel is necessarily and everywhere antagonist'ic 
to error. It proposes no accommodation, offers no com- 
promise, concludes no reconciliation with false teaching. 
The Brahman, with his easy creed of avatars (incarna- 
tions) would have gladly taken Christianity under his 
winp:s ; the Mahomedan * with his ostentatious rever- 
ence for Jesus as a prophet and teacher, would have 
readily afforded to our Lord a niche only a step lower 
than the Throne of the Infinite. But the religion of 
Christ, scorning all such overtures, upsets and overturns 
every system not of God, and builds its claims upon their 
charred and blackened ruins. If it were not of God, its 
success would be hopeless ; if it be of God, its conquest 
is neither doubtful nor strange. 

Tradition ascribes to St. Thomas, among the Apostles, 
the honor of having proclaimed Christ in India. At the 
dispersion of the early Church in Jerusalem, Sempronius 
and other early writers affirm that St. Thomas preached 
the gospel to the Medes, Persians, Carminians, Hyrcani 
and the neighboring nations. Leaving Persia, he traveled 
into Ethiopia, and thence proceeded to Hindustan. The 

"^ The Mahomedan acknowledges one God and Mahomed as his prophet. 
He allows Jesus to be the mightiest of the divine prophets, and chai-acter- 
izes him as Ruh Allah (the Spirit of God) while Mahomed is only Rasul 
Allah (the prophet of God). He stumbles, however, at the Divine Son- 
ship of our Lord, and altogether is among our bitterest and most wily 
opposers. 



MISSION MOSAICS. 1 79 

traditions of the early Portuguese settlers affirm that St. 
Thomas first came to Socotora, an island in the Arabian 
sea, thence landing upon the coast he proceeded inland, 
preaching the gospel. At Meliapur, the capital of the 
Coromandel kingdom, he attempted to erect a church, 
which, after much hindrance and persecution, was com- 
pleted, — Sagamo, the king, himself embracing the new 
faith. The Brahmans, alarmed at his success, attacked 
him while at his devotions, with darts, and finally dis- 
patched him with a spear. His body was buried in the 
church which he had erected. 

But kw facts remain with regard to this early church. 
For a time it flourished, and grew in favor with the Indian 
potentates, and maintained its position with much pomp 
and state. It is beyond doubt that this very favor slew 
its vitality ; and its followers insensibly lapsed into the 
wily meshes of heathenism. That a form of religion 
was maintained for long afterward is evident, not only 
from the traditions which abound, but from the monuments 
and relics which remain ; but ceasing to make war upon 
error the locks of its strength were shorn. 

A long period of darkness intervenes, unbroken by a 
ray of light. In 1541, Francis Xavier, called the 
*' Apostle of the Indies," entered upon his career as the 
Roman Catholic missionary to India. Personally, it 
cannot be doubted that he was an eminently devoted and 
useful preacher. He traversed the southern part of the 



l80 MISSION MOSAICS. 

peninsula from Goa to the Pearl fisheries in Comorin, 
and thence to Ceylon, always and everywhere abundant 
in labors and patient under tribulation. 

His methods of work were more questionable. " Xavier 
sent his catechists through the villages, and calling the 
people by the ringing of a bell, they read to them trans- 
lations of the Lord's Prayer, the Ten Commandments 
and the Creed, to which, if they assented, they were 
immediately baptized in such numbers that Xavier wrote, 
* It often happens to me that my hands fail through the 
fatigue of baptizing, for I have baptized a whole village 
in a single day.' He baptized children of heathen parents, 
and multitudes who knew not the language in which 
things were told them. Accessions were made to the 
Roman church by mixed marriages of Portuguese with 
natives on condition that the latter submitted to baptism. 
They transferred idolatrous worship from the idol to the 
crucifix, till the heathen recognized them as their ' little 
brothers.' The Romanists claimed in 1877 over a million 
of adherents in all India, though it is difficult to reconcile 
this with the returns in the Government census of 1880." 

The modern Protestant mission in India was founded 
in 1705. The Danes were the honored instruments of 
this advance. Ziegenbalg, the eminent student of Plalle 
University, with Plutschau as his colleague, forsaking the 
most brilliant of careers at home, embraced the putrid 
corpse of heathenism in India. His career was short 



. MISSION MOSAICS. l8l 

but bright. In 1 7 1 1 , Ziegenbalg had translated the whole 
of the New Testament into Tamil, and at the time of his 
death in 17 19, the Old Testament as far as Ruth. He was 
worthily succeeded by a band of noble men, who labored in 
and about Tranquebar, Madras, Negapatam, Fort St. David 
and Cuddalore, with much acceptance and success. 

In 1750, Schwartz, the brightest missionary light of 
Southern India, entered upon his long and successful 
career. For nearly half a century he toiled in the arid 
and unpromising harvest field with a devotion, sagacity 
and holy enthusiasm scarcely paralleled and never sur- 
passed. With a mere pittance of ^48 a year, clothed in 
a black suit of dyed dimity, contented with the humblest 
circumstances in life, he labored on heroically, until he 
beheld the rocks shattered, the fallow ground broken up, 
the sky of brass laden with richly freighted clouds, and 
the earth of iron bringing forth ripened sheaves. He 
was admired and respected by the natives on every side ; 
to the treacherous and suspecting potentates around, he 
was the pledge of Christian honor and truth. The Raja 
of Tanjore reverenced him as a father. The terror of 
the Carnatic, Hyder Ally, said to an English Embassy 
which waited on him with propositions for a treaty, " Send 
me the Christian (Schwartz) ; he will not deceive me." 
After a career of forty-eight years he left behind him ten 
thousand converts. 

The Danish Mission so auspiciously begun and so 



1 82 MISSION MOSAICS. 

ably carried forward, has but little to show to-day of its 
ingathered fruit. The caste system was treated with 
tolerance by the early missionaries, in ignorance, doubt- 
less, of its baleful effects ; and the thorns soon mounted 
high and crushed the wheat. To this unfortunate and 
unwise compromise may be traced the comparative failure 
of this most wisely organized and earnestly prosecuted 
missionary effort of modern days. 

In Bengal, the ground had been partially broken by 
earnest labor, but the honor of founding missionary worTc 
upon a broad and permanent basis belongs to William 
Carey, the devoted cobbler of Northampton, England. 
With his fervent soul on fire for the redemption of the 
world, he went up and down his native land until he had 
succeeded in infusing some life and warmth into the 
benumbed heart of the home church. The Baptist Mis- 
sionary Society was organized in 1792, and William 
Carey was sent out to India, with Mr. Thomas as his col- 
league. Carey entered upon his work in 1793, and was 
permitted to labor for nearly half a century, reaping richly 
as he had sown unsparingly. His way at first was abso- 
lutely closed up by the unfriendliness of the English 
government, and he and his co-laborers Marshman and 
Ward, who joined him later, had to accept the hospitality 
of the Danish government, and found their mission in 
Serampore, at some distance from Calcutta. Here the work 
of translating the Scriptures, teaching and direct evangeli- 



MISSION MOSAICS. I 83 

zation was steadily carried on. The printing of the New Tes- 
tament in Bengali was begun May 26, 1 800, and was finished 
February 7, 1801. The first Bengali convert, Krishna Pal, 
was baptized on the last Lord's Day in December, 1800. 

" William Carey represents the best type of modern 
missionary hero and reformer. Translating the New 
Testament into Bengali ; on a farm ; in the ' factory ; ' in 
the chair of Sanskrit and Bengali ; translating the Ram- 
ayana into the Vernacular ; founding a college ; helping 
forward moral and political reforms ; memorializing the 
government to suppress infanticide at Sagar, and the 
abominations of sati ; protesting against the ' Pilgrim tax ' 
of the government; or establishing a botanical garden, he 
towers sublimely as the representative of the noblest and 
broadest philanthrophy and aggressive Christianity." 

Adoniram Judson, the apostle of Burmah, stands at 
the van of the long train of noble missionaries devoted 
by Christian America to the redemption of the East, 
He commenced his labors in 1 81 3, and amidst the severest 
opposition from a despotic monarch, and a haughty and 
indolent people, planted the gospel in benighted Burmah. 
With his noble and devoted wife, he endured the most 
harrowing persecution ; in perils, in imprisonments, often 
weary and discouraged, he labored on until, at the close 
of his ministry, he could look back with grateful satis- 
faction at the mighty work wrought of God and say " I 
eat the rice and fruit cultivated by Christian hands, look 



184 MISSION MOSAICS. 

on the fields of Christians, see no dwelling but those 
of Christian families."* 

But another name remains to be added to the noble 
band of missionary pioneers, that of Alexander Duff, of 
the Free Church of Scotland. The irrepressible flame of 
a pure missionary zeal, burning in his soul with quench- 
less ardour, communicated its warmth to his church, and 
urged it to action. After being twice shipwrecked, Duff 
reached India in 1830, and laid the foundation of his 
unique work, — the evangelization of the high-caste Hindu 
by means of Christian education. He began his famous 
institution with five pupils, and in nine years, they num- 
bered eight hundred. That institution not only diffused 
the rays of secular knowledge, but poured forth the light 
of the purest and most aggressive evangelization. The 
converts from this fountain of Christian learning have 
never been surpassed for qualities of mind and spirit. To 
Dr. Duff belongs the honor of having achieved the vic- 
tory in one of the most important contests on the line of 
missionary progress, — the adoption of the English lan- 
guage as the vehicle of higher education in India. To 
those who reap the fruit of his labors, it seems incredible 
that a contest should have been necessary in a cause so 
obviously of advantage to India. Yet the most stren- 

* In the Baptist church at Maiden, Mass., there is a Tablet to his memory 
bearing the following inscription: ^^ Maiden his Birth-place — The Ocean 
his Sepulchre — Burman Converts and the Burnian Bible his Monument — 
His record is on highP 



MISSION MOSAICS. 1 8$ 

uous and persistent efforts of a man endowed with no 
ordinary strength of purpose were required to break down 
the sentimental OrientaHsm of the period, and to throw 
open the portals of true progress. 

With such pioneers, the missionary force in India has 
planted its batteries in lines of prudent circumvallation 
around the citadel o^ heathenism. Flag after flag marks 
new arrivals upon the scene of action. There are now 
hardly less than fifty representatives of Mission Societies 
or Associations at work in India, distributed over 
almost every part of the vast continent, — 658 Foreign 
and Anglo Indian ordained agents, 674 native ordained 
agents, and 2988 native lay preachers (making a total 
of 4320 preachers, against 953 in 185 1, when the num- 
ber of ordained native preachers was only 29), proclaim 
the gospel in every language and dialect of India. The 
Pioneer Woman's Missionary Society was that of the 
Free Church of Scotland, which sent out its first agent 
in 1843. Now no less than seventeen Societies are rep- 
resented in the field, with a force of 541 foreign and 
Anglo Indian agents, and 1944 native Christian workers. 
Total, 2485 agents, against 1390 in 1871. Although 
devoted and zealous women had before this period 
assailed the Zenanas, and here and there forced an 
entrance into its darkened cloisters, this was the begin- 
ning of a new era in missionary work, of peculiar signifi- 
cance and importance. 



^ 



I 86 MISSION MOSAICS. 

The means employed by this army of workers demands 
some notice and explanation. The public proclamation 
OF THE GOSPEL must be regarded as the most direct and 
important of the agencies at the command of the mission- 
ary, and this is, of course, his chief and trustiest weapon. 
To proclaim the truth by the living voice in the high- 
ways and byways, in street and market, in city and 
village — 'everywhere — has been recognized by every 
Missionary Society as in a high degree becoming and 
necessary. 

Standing in the public square or thoroughfare, the mis- 
sionary arrests the passers-by either by reading or by 
singing, — the latter, especially if accompanied with instru- 
mental mu'sic, being by far the most effective. The 
audience secured, the judicious preacher proceeds to un- 
fold his message with clearness and caution, securing as 
far as possible, the sympathy of his hearers. He may 
begin with the claims of God as Creator, Benefactor and 
Preserver ; he then proceeds to expose the wickedness 
of sin, appealing to the facts of experience and conscious- 
ness to support his statements. In dealing with this sub- 
ject, he confronts the subtle and serious difficulty of being 
altogether out of the normal plane of his hearers' thoughts 
and conceptions on the point involved. When he spoke 
of sin, he meant the actual transgression of the moral law, 
and of the defilement caused by contact with evil ; the 
Hindu thinks of sin as the result of the association of 



MISSION MOSAICS. I 8/ 

spirit with a material body, and as the necessary fruit 
of secular ties and domestic relations. Guarding aeainst 
the danger of being misunderstood, the preacher advances 
to unfold the righteousness and justice" of God, showing 
that the guilt of sin cannot but be obnoxious to infinite 
justice in a sense which makes mere repentance, without 
adequate satisfaction for sins actually committed, a hope- 
less and chimerical expedient. Having now laid down his 
foundation, he attempts to erect thereon the necessary and 
befitting superstructure of the vicarious sacrifice of Christ, 
showing its exact adaptation to the needs of the guilty and 
sinful soul. He closes his appeal with the testimony of 
actual experience, and lifts up Christ as available and 
present to do the same work for all who will believe. 

The time has happily gone by when the sacred plat- 
form of the cross was made the arena of heated and retal- 
iatory controversy. It was the fashion of a certain class 
of preachers to assail with wanton ruthlessness the whole 
religious system of their hearers ; and then, having pro- 
voked a controversy in the most combative spirit, to re- 
tort and retaliate so as to harass and annoy, if they could 
not convince or silence. Such unholy tournaments are 
past, however, and a better spirit and wiser method are 
adopted by the preachers of the gospel. It happens com- 
monly, however, that with the most loving and sagacious 
preacher, those of " the baser sort," will try to raise a 
debate or contention ; but the missionary usually knows 



1 88 MISSION MOSAICS. 

his men and will skillfully avoid being taken in the 
meshes of profitless if not profane disputing. 

Opinions have varied among experienced workers as 
to the ultimate value of these public proclamations. It 
has been contended that with a shifting, restless and often 
contentious audience, a mere half hour's preaching, even 
in the most judicious manner, can accomplish but little ; 
and with this view, there are those who engage but little 
in public and promiscuous " Bazaar preaching." While this 
objection has some weight, and while there can be no 
question that preaching in villages, private houses, and 
other localities where the truth can be more forcibly and 
personally brought home, is usually more fruitful, — these 
facts do not justify the neglect of public and formal 
proclamation of truth by the ambassador of Christ. 
Promising sheaves have been gathered by the faithful 
and earnest preacher in the crowded bazaar, while in- 
fluences have gone forth from that lifting up of Christ 
in the sight of the people, which he could neither compre- 
hend nor calculate. 

The fact is, this work of public preaching has been 
performed in general, with but little spirit and expecta- 
tion of success. The missionary has gone forth to per- 
form a duty ; this done, he has returned home " leaving 
the issues with God." He has carried the seed basket in 
his hand, and has scattered broadcast, but he never 
dreamed of taking the reaping scythe in expectation of a 



MISSION MOSAICS. I 89 

harvest The great deficiency in public preaching is the 
want of facihty or means for holding, directly after the 
preaching, an earnest and believing prayer meeting. If 
it be expedient, as it commonly is, to hold such a meet- 
ing upon the public square where the gospel was pro- 
claimed, there ought to be at hand a suitable place to 
which the audience can be invited for prayer and exhor- 
tation. Another important lack is the neglect to track 
and pursue those who manifest interest or anxiety during 
the preaching. It is not difficult to perceive this, and a 
faithful vigilance and loving perseverance would often be 
rewarded with gratifying success. On the first occasion 
that I ever stood up in the bazaar to proclaim the gospel, 
an old Mahomedan manifested signs of deep interest and 
concern. . He was afterward spoken to and visited. His 
case was deeply interesting : " My heart," said he, " is vile 
and polluted, and I find it impossible to rid myself of this 
pollution by any external process ; tell me how I can be 
cleansed within from sin." He was led to Christ as an 
all-sufficient Saviour, and in due time baptized. 

It is a sign of the most encouraging hopefulness that 
the faith of God's servants is reviving in His ability to 
grant them present success. The Rev. Mr. Knowles, of 
the Methodist Mission in Gondah, recently attracted the 
attention of the missionary workers in India by a success 
of the most striking kind in a short itinerating tour. He 
went forth with a chosen company of praying and believ- 



igO MISSION MOSAICS. 

ing workers, suitably equipped, and preaching from place 
to place, he then and there offered Christ to the hearers. 
Several came forward as seekers of salvation ; they were 
instructed, and having received Christ, were forthwith 
baptized, and have continued faithful ever since. Among 
these were religious fakirs or mendicants, who became 
traveling preachers (unpaid) of the gospel. 

Religious Education, as an elevating and regenerating 
agency, holds a place second only to the public preach- 
ing of the gospel. There is a philosophy underlying 
this which it is well to emphasize. The Hindu sacred 
scriptures profess to teach science as well as theology ; 
they contain crude and erroneous theories concerning the 
commonest phenomena. The earth, according to them, 
is flat ; there is an immensely high mountain in the 
centre of it, and it is the disappearance of the heavenly 
bodies behind this mountain which makes day and night. 
There are seven concentric seas upon the earth, one 
of these being a sea of milk. The eclipse of sun or moon 
is caused by the attempt of a giant demon to swallow up 
these bodies. Such are some of the authoritative teachings 
of the Hindu scriptures. The diffusion of true knowl- 
edge in dispelling these crude notions, really unhinges 
their traditional faith, and it needs only the positive incul- 
cation of Bible truth to build up a true faith upon the 
ruins of the false and the puerile. 

The Educational method has not a few opponents, 



MISSION MOSAICS. I9I 

however. In a recent article In a public religious journal, 
Mr. Goffin thus criticises this form of missionary 
work : '' It would, indeed, be a singular thing if schools 
and colleges conducted by earnest, enlightened Christian 
men were not doing a good work. But is that a reason 
why missionaries should feel themselves called upon to 
engage in it? Are Missionary Societies so constituted 
that anything which looks like a good work and which 
tends in the direction of Christianity, may be taken up 
and carried on by them ? If so, I wonder how it is that 
son)e Society, observing that railways are a mission- 
ary agency, in breaking down caste, prejudice, etc., does 
not at once cjonclude that it is its duty to construct a 
missionary railway, with Christian missionaries as station- 
masters, guards or porters ? " 

The attempted analogy, however, fails in two particu- 
lars, demonstrating the shallowness of the reasoning, — 
Railway construction, though a good work is not neces- 
sarily or in itself conducive to spiritual regeneration, — 
Religious (Bible) education is ; again, others, beside the 
Missionary, can run a Railroad, but no one beside the 
Missionary will undertake to educate upon a religious 
basis. Hence, such sweeping and hasty criticisms do not 
really touch the question. 

There is, however, danger of the missionary educa- 
tionist losing sight of the great end in view, and becom- 
ing content with the successful achievement of the 



192 MISSION MOSAICS. 

means. There is also the risk of being led away by an 
emulative ambition to outvie the secular Institutions 
around, and this danger is greatest in the prosecution of 
what is called " The Higher Education." Here tests and 
standards of proficiency, the ordeal of examinations and 
the plaudits of victory, divert, bewilder and intoxicate, and 
very insensibly the great end is lost sight of, and the 
arena of educational tournament entered. Of course, the 
Bible is read, and a form of religion is maintained, but 
the spirit is extinct. What wonder if such Institutions 
are barren in spiritual results? What wonder if the 
missionary directors of such places become fossilized, 
dead, — provoking the criticism of their colleagues in 
directly Evangelistic work. 

That such an end, however, is by no means a necessary 
result of the educational method, is demonstrated by the 
success which has attended the labors of the true mis- 
sionary teacher. It was Alexander Duff who first empha- 
sized mental enlightenment as a successful evangelizer, 
and he demonstrated the truth of the propositions by 
actual success. From the noble Institution founded by 
him, went forth not only scholars of the highest culture, 
but Christian preachers and teachers such as Gopi 
Nath Nandy, Behari Lai Dey, C. Banerjea, and Ram 
Chandra Bose. The fact is, the converts of this Insti- 
tution, in respect alike of their high caste, superior 
mental endowments, devoted piety and Christian zeal 



MISSION MOSAICS. 1 93 

and usefulness, have, as a body, no superior, and few 
parallels. 

But Duff unfolds his own secret. He planted his 
Institution, watered it, expanded it, matured it, — not for 
the sake of educating, — to make fine scholars, — but to 
win souls to Christ. This was his first, his middle, his 
final object. And he succeeded. Thus may the mis- 
sionary educationist succeed to-day, as indeed many are 
achieving success. But this can only be done by a stern 
determination to avoid the inviting race of competition 
with secular schools, and in rigidly keeping before the 
mind, the thought that the success of missionary educa- 
tion is to be measured not by the strength of the gradu- 
ating class, but by the number of souls brought to 
Christ. 

An example of the power of true knowledge to under- 
mine the error of traditionary faith is found in the follow- 
ing interesting narrative. Thirty years before the great 
rebellion of 1857, when there was but little mental activ- 
ity in India, two young men, a Brahman and a Mahom- 
edan, were employed as teachers in a Government 
* school at Ahmednuggur. Their English education had 
undermined their respective beliefs, and overthrown their 
traditional usages, so that these two friends lived together, 
ate together and with other low caste persons. Thus 
situated, the Holy Ghost poured light into their darkened 
minds, and revealed to them their lost condition. They 

9 N 



1^4 MISSION MOSAICS. 

knew not what to do since they had no missionary 
enHghtenment or help. They accordingly sought rest 
for their souls in a sort of Deism, evolved out of their 
own thoughts and from books on natural religion. They 
obtained a book of Christian prayers, and having erased 
the name of Jesus Christ, used them in their devotions. 

At this juncture, Dr. Duff, visiting the American Mis- 
sion at Ahmednuggur, delivered a lecture to the Euro- 
peans and English speaking natives upon the evidences of 
Christianity. The two men were struck, enlightened, con- 
vinced, and after a sanguinary struggle, resolved to embrace 
the truth. They stood up for baptism together, the Brah- 
man and the Mahomedan. Six years afterward the 
latter was ordained a minister of the gospel, while his 
friend devoted himself as a teacher and writer. To-day 
the former is the able Mahratti editor of the D?iyano- 
daya, in Bombay, the latter a zealous missionary in 

Satara. * 

This narrative illustrates the destructive work which 
the diffusion of knowledge upon a non-religious basis is 
doing; it unhinges the faith of the student, but offers 
him nothing instead. Herein appears the necessity of 
associating the Bible with the work of education ; so 
that, as the hold is relaxed from rotten straw and stubble, 
the hand may lay hold upon the eternal cable of safety. 

Thus directed and helped, the rescued soul may 
become the germ of a broad harvest. Mr. Hume, a 



MISSION MOSAICS. I95 

missionary in Western India, recently related the follow- 
ing encouraging incident. More than twenty years ago 
a student from a remote village, in Northern India, came 
to Bombay, and entered the Institution of the Free 
Church of Scotland. He was led to Christ, and with his 
new treasure, returned like the eunuch of Candace, to 
his own country. He told his story, men and women 
listened, believed and professed faith in Christ. His 
brothers came to Bombay, were baptized and returned to 
their village. A little congregation of thirty or more 
through their preaching believed, and formed themselves 
into a church. Until March, 1883, no missionary other 
than these brothers had visited the village. Then Mr. 
Hume was persuaded to go, and found the Christian 
congregation, though still unbaptized. On his first visit 
the missionary baptized seventeen persons, and thirteen 
again, a few months later. A plot of ground has been 
selected for a church, and the building commenced upon. 
The native church in Bombay have sent a missionary to 
this region, whose expenses are all borne by this noble 
band of disciples. 

The Press cannot but be recognized as another of the 
vital factors of power in the great work of evangelization. 
There is no religion besides Christianity, which lays such 
stress upon the necessity of widely disseminating its 
scriptures. Hence, the primal need for the enlistment of 
the Press. The publication of the Holy Scriptures, in 



196 



MISSION MOSAICS. 



whole and in portions, in the various languages and dia- 
lects of India, necessitate the fullest employment of this 
agency. 

But in addition to this, a Christian literature must be 
created and carried forward. This must have respect to 
two classes of persons — those who are within and those 
who are without the fold of the Christian Church, — the 
first devotional and confirmatory, the latter, polemical 
and apologetic. The growing native Christian Church 
needs to be nourished, fed, strengthened, and this must be 
done by placing before it a wholesome and nutritious 
literature. The want of appetite which exists in this 
direction, can only be remedied by careful education and 
by bringing within reach a literature at once interesting, 
edifying and inexpensive. 

For the masses of non-Christians, a series of concise, 
attractive and inexpensive books or tractates reviewing 
existing systems of religion in a kindly but candid spirit, 
and demonstrating the truth of the religion of Christ, is 
the need of the hour. Valuable contributions have been 
made, and the foundation of a purely indigenous litera- 
ture has already been laid by competent men, such as 
Rev. Nehemiah Nilkanth Goreh, and Maulvi Safdar 
Ali ; and the work is in course of rapid enlargement. 

As to the distributive agency, sale at cheap prices is 
now almost entirely superseding the system of gratuitous 
distribution formerly in vogue. This is found to be pro- 



MISSION MOSAICS. 1 97 

ductive of enlarged interest on the part of the recipi- 
ents, so that, except hand bills and tracts of two or four 
pages which are scattered broadcast over the land, no 
gratuitous distribution exists. But the price fixed is, in 
every case, low, — not equalling the cost price, even in the 
sale of scriptures. It is a significant fact that since the 
general adoption of the system of sale, the circulation 
of this class ot literature has largely increased. 

The Rev. G. O. Newport, of Madras, gives the follow- 
ing facts as to the circulation of religious literature in 
Southern India : — " We find that during the past ten 
years, about 7,223,400 Tamil, 1,300,400 Telugu, 321,200 
Malayala, 728,000 Kanarese, 42,200 Hindustani, 7600 
Mahratti and 220 Guzerati publications have been issued, 
making a total of 9,623,020 ; and that thus an average of 
about a million per year are in current circulation in 
South India." 

This is a good exhibition, but the power of the Press 
in India is only in the dawn. This has a two-fold work 
to do, to wake up the dormant mental activity of a slug- 
gish people, and then, when the appetite is created, to 
provide a suitable supply for it. 

Medical Work is another of the engines used by the 
missionary to commend the gospel of Christ, the Great 
Physician. In a country like India, where the density of 
the population, the poverty of the people, the absence of 
all sanitary regard and regulation and the frequent sweep 



198 MISSION MOSAICS. 

of devastating epidemics, expose human life to more 
than the ordinary risks of disease and death, with far less 
means at command, in the form of competent medical 
skill, to meet the emergency, — the combination of the 
knowledge of healing, with missionary zeal and energy, 
cannot but prove an appreciated boon. Dr. Batchelor, a 
missionary from Midnapore, says, — " In our preaching to 
the heathen, we largely fail in making them understand 
what Christianity really is ; we say ' thou shalt love thy 
neighbour as thyself,' and they respond, ' yes, that is a 
noble sentiment,' but they do not understand it because 
they have never seen it illustrated. Called out of bed at 
night, not complaining that needed rest is broken ; 
watching by the side of the sick and dying, inspiring 
courage and hope, affording such aid as we may be able, 
we may say, this is what we mean. Go thou and do 
likewise. It is asked, who may practice medicine ? I 
reply, he who knows how, and he who can. Have you 
that faith, which is the gift of God, that may heal the 
sick ? Use it. With the fact that it is not popular, that 
many have no faith in it, you have nothing to do. The 
question is, can _you do it ? If you can, do it in the Mas- 
ter's name, and let no man forbid you. If you know one 
remedy for a given disease and can use it, do so with- 
out stopping to raise the question of authority." 

Dr. Scudder, of Vellore, adds — " Even a partial knowl- 
edge of medicine is an unparalleled power for a Mission- 



MISSION MOSAICS. 1 99 

ary in India. The heart of that man who is freely treated 
for sickness has been gained by the Christian preacher. 
In a village visited for several years with little effect, I 
saw a boy with a tumour and lanced it successfully. I 
was always welcomed in that village afterward. Another 
time, a brother of mine, not a doctor, was called to see a 
woman in sickness. He relieved her, and at that place we 
have one of our best village churches with one hundred 
members." 

The Establishment of Hospitals and Dispensaries, and 
the training up of native medical assistants, men and 
women, are the natural channels into which the medical 
missionary work flows and amplifies, each in turn assum- 
ing proportions of magnitude and importance. 

The Woman's Missionary Work is not so much 
another method of missionary work, as a separate depart- 
ment comprising in measure all the methods here referred 
to. It has its directly evangelistic, its educational and 
its medical sections, — together comprising a missionary 
force whose effectiveness is only surpassed by the vast 
need which has called it into existence. When it is 
remembered that more than half of the immense non- 
Christian population of India is female, that centuries of 
exclusion and ignorance within the walls of the Zenana 
have extinguished all mental activity and almost every 
spiritual aspiration from the mind and heart of the Hindu 
woman, that the social gulf existing between different 



200 MISSION MOSAICS. 

castes, between the two sexes in the same caste, between 
brother and sister, and husband and wife in the same 
family, are so wide and deep as to preclude utterly the 
percolation of a regenerating knowledge from one caste 
to another, from one household to its neighbor, and even 
from the males to the females of the same household, — 
the necessity for a house to house, heart to heart work 
among the women of India, is demonstrated. The Male 
Missionary is of course incompetent for this, — even the 
Medical Missionary may not pierce the purdah of the 
Zenana, to save a human life ; * — hence the necessity of 
a Woman's Christian Mission. 

" Woman's work in England and America," says Miss 
Thoburn, of Lucknow, " is economy, a division of labor 
that results may be greater and more readily attained ; 
but woman's work in India is a necessity, without which 
a wide field must remain uncultivated." We would go 
further, and affirm that the mission work in India has 

■^ J. Talboys Wheeler relates an incident in his Indian Tales which illus- 
trates this : An English physician, named Fiyer, was summoned from 
Bombay to Joonere, to attend the Mogal governor's family. One of the 
ladies of the Zenana was sick. The Astrologers were first consulted and 
fixed a lucky day for the interview. Then a healthy damsel was put in a 
bed carefully shut round with curtains, and the wrist held out for the phy- 
sician to feel her pulse. This was to test his skill. The doctor at once 
detected the cheat. Then he was introduced to the real patient and 
treated her successfully. Cases even of such pardah treatment of Zenana 
women by male physicians, are exceedingly rare. 



MISSION MOSAICS. 201 

arrived at a point where it can press its victories no 
farther upon the mass, except there move in parallel lines 
the advancing column of female evangelization. Miss 
Greenfield, of Ludiana, Panjab, in speaking on this 
subject before the Calcutta Missionary Conference of 
1882, did not overstate the case when she said, — "In 
listening to the eloquent speeches of our brethren on the 
important topics that have already occupied the attention 
of this conference, I have been struck by this fact that 
speaker after speaker has urged that by bazaar preaching, 
by higher education, and other branches of mission work, 
you are dealing heavy blows at the head of the gigantic 
form of heathenism, which it is our mission to meet and 
to conquer. 'Higher education,' we are told, 'was to 
slay Hinduism through its brain,' — though it has not 
done so yet. My sisters, you and I in all our woman's 
weakness and conscious insufficiency are here in India to 
strike the death blow, not at the monster's Jicad, but at 
his HEART, and by God's help, we shall drain out his life- 
blood yet. For I believe that the heart of Hinduism is 
not in the mystic teaching of the Vedas or Shastras, not 
in the finer spun philosophy of its modern exponents, 
not even in the bigoted devotion of its religious leaders, 
but enshrined in the homes, in the family life and in the 
hereditary customs of the people ; fed, preserved, and 
perpetuated by the wives and mothers of India.* Let us, 
* " There can be no reasonable doubt but that the religious fairs and fes- 
9* 



202 MISSION MOSAICS. 

in our Master's name, lay our hand on the hand that 
rocks the cradle, and tune the lips that sing the lullabies. 
Let us win the mothers of India for Christ, and the day 
will not be long deferred when India's sons also shall be 
brought to the Redeemer's feet. 

" The Panjdbis have a proverb to the effect that a car- 
riage cannot run with only one wheel, and use it to 
illustrate the fact that man and wife must pull together 
if the household is to prosper. I think the Mission 
chariot is no exception to this rule ; that even though 
you may consider woman's work a very small wheel, like 
the little wheel of the bicycle, still that little wheel bears 
an important share in the general progress ; and I venture 
to think further that your carriage will be all the steadier 
and run more safely, when the two wheels are of equal 
size, and run on parallel lines, instead of one behind the 
other l^ 

The advance of evangelization in India is nowhere so 
marked as in the woman's work. Doors of opportunity 
have been flung open, the ramparts of incarceration 
stormed and scaled, and the Lady Missionary is now a 
welcome visitor in the Zenanas. The difficulty is not 
now to find an entrance, but to find qualified and conse- 
crated women to enter the open doors. The great work, 
however, is only just begun, and before this evangelizing 

tivals of the countiy are maintained mainly through the influence of Hindu 
women." — Madras Census Report. 



MISSION MOSAICS. 203 

force there waits the most wonderful revolution which 
the world has ever seen. 

The work among the young, being done by the Sun- 
day School, is among the most recent developments of 
mission work, but by no means the least important. 
Until recently it was not believed that the students of our 
Mission Schools could be gathered together on Sundays 
solely for religious instruction, and as to being able to 
collect children for Sunday instruction apart from and 
without the inter-medium of the day school, — such a 
thing was inconceivable. Yet both these are not only 
possible, but demonstrated to be entirely practicable. To 
illustrate this, the Rev. B. IT. Radley, of Lucknow, notes 
that in Sitapur, in 1868, there was but one Sunday School 
with ten scholars. In 1872, the Missionary in charge 
wrote, " We find it impossible to maintain Sunday Schools 
without secular schools as a basis." In 1882, ten years 
later, the Missionary reports for the same field, twenty- 
eight Sunday Schools attended by one thousand one 
hundred and three scholars. 

The practicability of such schools being demonstrated, 
their importance is beyond question. To leaven the 
young mind with true knowledge, to undermine error 
and false teaching, before these have grown into gnarled 
roots imbedded in the soil, to lay the foundation, intel- 
lectually at least, of the true faith in the mind of the 
young, are sufficient to commend this work to the Mis- 



204 MISSION MOSAICS. 

sionary, even if no immediate saving results be manifest. 
But there is no reason to doubt that faithful labor may 
reap even this result. Mr. Badley narrates the follow- 
ing :■ — " In one of our city Sunday Schools, was a boy 
of fourteen, Sita Ram, the son of a carpenter. He 
attended Sunday School regularly, opened his heart to 
the truths taught, became deeply interested in the lessons 
and hymns, and was a model scholar. He fell sick and 
was soon brought to the point of death. He sent for the 
Catechist and asked him to read to him of Jesus and to 
sing the Sunday School hymns once more. The Cate- 
chist read and sang and prayed. The boy said to his 
sorrowing relatives, * Don't weep for me ; I have accepted 
the Lord Jesus Christ, and he is calling me home ; ' and 
thus he passed away. He still leaves in the memory of 
all who knew him an illustration of the power of the 
Bible to awaken, and of Christ to save. His sister, older 
than he, continued to attend the girl's Sunday School, 
and manifested her interest in the gospel in many ways ; 
this year she also passed away, and I doubt not has 
joined Sita Ram in the ' happy land,' of which they 
learned in the Sunday School. The other members of 
the family are now candidates for baptism." 

Encouraging progress has been made in the extension 
of this hopeful work, and in the Methodist Missions alone 
there is now an army of eighteen thousand Sunday-school 
pupils and teachers, receiving regular religious instruc- 



MISSION MOSAICS. 205 

tion, and this is only the small beginning of a work whose 
importance it is not possible to overstate. In its expan- 
sive possibilities, the Sunday School work has indeed but 
a single limitation, the want of sincere and consecrated 
teachers,* — the actual working expense of a school beino- 
SO small as to hardly constitute a feature of serious con- 
sideration. 

Such are the methods and agencies employed by the 
diligent Missionary for the accomplishment of his great 
work. The end, the ultimate purpose, before him is one, 
— the evangelization of the multitude ; — the methods of 
operation, many and diverse. Whether preaching in the 
streets or bazaars, itinerating in the villages, expounding 
the truth in some lowly church, teaching in the day 
school, superintending translations of God's word, direct- 
ing the press, originating a literature, visiting the zenanas, 
or leading a Sunday School of ragged boys or girls 
under a tree or within a house, — the faithful husband- 
man is sowing good seed in expectation of a sure and 
speedy harvest. Going forth, bearing precious seed, it 
may be with w^eeping, he " shall doubtless come again 
with rejoicing bringing his sheaves with him."" Doubt- 

* The ideal teacher for the Sunday School is a voluntary laborer, — a man 
or woman truly converted and consecrated, devoting himself to this work 
for the love of it. When this class of teachers is not available in sufficient 
force, the Missionary is compelled to content himself Avith less effective 
and promising instnmientality ; even such supply, however, is limited. 



206 MISSION MOSAICS. 

LESS ; this is the Divine security against failure, the abso- 
lute guarantee for ultimate victory ! 

What are the results, thus far, of these arduous and 
diversified labors ? Notwithstanding the difficulties of 
the field, the long continued unfriendliness if not antag- 
onism of the Government, the inadequacy of the mis- 
sionary force, there are to-day no less than six hundred 
thousand Protestant Christians in the Native Christian 
Church of India, Burmah and Ceylon.* That this har- 
vest is not due, mainly, to the labors of the heroic pio- 
neers of the gospel in India, but that a healthy and 
encouraging growth is in progress, is demonstrated by a 
comparison between the statistics of previous decades, 
which shows that the rates of increase from 1851 to 1861, 
was fifty -three per cent; from 1861 to 187 1, sixty-one 
per cent. ; while from 1871 to 1881, it was eighty-six per 
cent. 

■^In 1881, the N. C. Church was divided as follows: 

Madras 299,742 

Bengal 83,583 

Burmah 75,510 

Ceylon 35»7o8 

Bombay 11,691 

N. W. Province 10,390 

Central India 4,885 

Punjab 4,672 

Oudh 1,329 

527,510 



MISSION MOSAICS. 20/ 

The number of actual communicants may be set down 
at one hundred and fifty thousand, and here, too, an inspir- 
ing advance is manifest. The number of communicants 
nearly doubled in the first decade, and more than doubled 
in the two following decades. In every city, in almost 
every town of India, you may meet with churches and 
congregations of devout native Christians, and though 
you may not understand their speech, there is a language 
which you cannot misunderstand, — the language of the 
tear-dimmed eye, the heaven-lit brow, the throbbing 
breast, as laying his hand upon his heart, and lifting his 
right arm before God, the grateful, devoted convert thus 
testifies — '' Whereas I was once blind, now I see ! " 

But the work going forward is not to be measured by 
tabulated statistics, — it is too deep, too broad, too still, 
for arithmetical observation and measurement. The pow- 
erful leaven of the gospel is working its way into the 
masses, and its influence may be traced in diverse forms 
and different degrees of revolutionary power. Individuals, 
far away from any mission station or agent, have received 
a stray seed of truth into the heart, but this seed has 
remained and borne fruit, though no servant of Christ has 
known of it A young man in Southern Orissa told 
some Baptist Missionaries the following story about his 
father : " About two years ago, my father put a quantity 
of merchandise upon his bullock's back, and went on a 
three day's journey into the district to attend a market. 



208 MISSION MOSAICS. 

While there he met a friend of his from another village, 
from the opposite direction. This friend said to him, 'I 
have three little books teaching a new religion.' He 
showed them to my father, and my father asked him to 
give him one, and he did. When he got home, he put 
away his bullocks, and washed his feet, and sat down to 
read his book, and that book perfectly bewitched my 
father. In a few days he had lost his appetite, and as he 
read the book, we noticed great big tears trickling down 
his cheeks, and he became altogether a changed man, his 
face looked so sorrowful and sad. We thought father 
was bewitched by that book, and we must burn the book 
and mix the ashes in water and give it to him to drink to 
take the witches out of him ; but he guarded the book 
and we could not get at it. As he read, sirs, a still more 
wonderful change came over him ; his tears dried up, his 
face became happy, and his appetite returned, and he took 
food as usual. But he would not go to the idol temple 
any more, and he would not have any thing more to do 
with Hinduism or the Hindu religion. Well, sirs, father 
died a year ago ; but when he was dying the Brah- 
mans came and stood about the door, and wanted to 
come in and get their presents, but father waved them 
away with his hand and said, ' No Brahman's are needed 
here, — I need not your help;' and he would not allow a 
Brahman to set foot inside his house. Then, when we 
saw the end was approaching, my mother, my brothers, 



\ MISSION MOSAICS. 2O9 

and myself, gathered around, and said, * Father, you are 
dying, you are dying; do call on Krishna, for you are 
dying.' He looked up with a pleasant smile, and said, 
* My boy, I have a better name than that, — the name of 
Jesus Christ, the Redeemer of the world, of whom I read 
in my little book ; that is a better name than Krishna.' 
And my father died, sirs, with the name of Jesus Christ 
on his lips." 

That such precious fruit may be borne even within 
the dark walls of the Zenana dungeon, is demonstrated 
by the touching incident of a girl in Calcutta, who, when 
dying, called for water and solemnly baptized herself in 
the name of Jesus ; then, placing an open Bible over her 
head, as a token of crowning, she trustfully committed 
herself to the Redeemer of the world, and breathed her 
last. 

Such examples of the power of the gospel are not 
confined to individuals ; whole communities and societies 
have been discovered in remote parts of India, acknowl- 
edging Christ as the true and only Saviour, and believing 
in His word. Almost every missionary of experience 
has instances of this kind to narrate, and while sometimes 
foolish vao-aries are found intertwined in the faith of these 
quasi-Christian communities, there is, nevertheless, a 
hopeful and significant strand of gospel light and trust 
bound up with the rotten threads of error. Sometimes, 
companies of fakirs or religious mendicants are 



2IG MISSION MOSAICS. 

found acknowledging Christ as their Satya Guru, or True 
Teacher. They sing Christian hymns, pray, read the 
gospels, and teach others to do the same. Some years 
ago, I met three Hindu fakirs in a sequestered village, 
openly professing Christ as their Lord and Saviour, with 
a band of no less than two hundred disciples. They 
were accustomed to meet regularly for prayer and sing- 
ing and reading of a portion of the gospels. This 
society had been organized by the oldest fakir, then 
about eighty years old, who, while a young man, had 
received and read a part of the New Testament, and had 
received the truth in simplicity and power. 

The mighty, yet for a time silent, working of the gos- 
pel leaven is illustrated further by the frequent mass 
movements which have occurred in the history of mission 
work in India. Among the Karens, the Santhals, the 
Shanars and other tribes in India, the fruit of the toils of 
years has been gathered in by handfuls in a single day. 
Take the following as an example : " In 185 3,. a mission- 
ary and his native preacher visited Ongole, seventy-seven 
miles north of Nellore, and were reviled and stoned. In 
1865, twelve years after, that missionary and another 
visited Ongole, and the second missionary remained and 
became resident. In 1867, a church was organized at 
Ongole, with eight members. On March 15, 1878, the 
little church numbered one hundred and ten, and the mis- 
sionary says that he was not baptizing anybody, though 



MISSION MOSAICS. 211 

fifteen hundred persons, from near and far, requested 
baptism. On June 6, 1878, after careful examinations 
conducted through months, Mr. Clough, the resident 
missionary, and his native assistants, commenced baptiz- 
ing the persons clamoring for it. One day, they baptized 
two thousand two hundred and twenty-two. Between 
July 6th and i6th, they baptized eight thousand six hun- 
dred and ninety-one." 

" Tinnevelly, in the extreme southern part of India, was 
the scene of -a like marvelous movement. After twenty 
years of preparatory toil, in seven months, more than 
sixteen thousand souls placed themselves voluntarily 
under instruction, with a view to Christian baptism." * 
Sir John Lawrence, the wise administrator, the thought- 
ful observer, the devout Christian, has left this record of 
his opinion : — *' It seems to me that, year by year, and 
cycle by cycle, the influence of these missionaries must 
increase, and that in God's good will, the time may be 
expected to come, when large masses of the people, hav- 
ing lost all faith in their own, and feeling the want of a 
religion which is pure and true and holy, will be con- 
verted and profess the Christian religion ; and, having 
professed it, live in accordance with its precepts." 

Passing from quantity to quality, we inquire for a 
moment as to the actual character of the work wrought 
by the gospel in India. Survey the individual convert 

* J, T. Gracey's India, p. 149. 



212 MISSION MOSAICS. 

and take into view his situation and circumstances. Here 
is the average Hindu, — thoughtless and self-satisfied, 
walking in the traditions of his fathers, totally without 
care or concern of any kind with regard to his future. 
Hearing, for the first time, the proclamation of the truth, 
conviction fastens upon him, and he is deeply stirred in 
spirit. He hears of human guilt and sin, of the infinite 
justice of God which can by no means clear the guilty, 
and in the depth of his soul there is born the anguished 
cry — " What must I do to be saved ? " The preacher 
then descants upon the love of God and of the sacrifice 
of Jesus, and dwells upon the richness and breadth of the 
promise — " Him that cometh unto me I will in no wise 
cast out." And alongside of the guilty terror, there is 
begotten in the man's soul a new hope, which thrills his 
being. 

With these feelings aroused and in conflict, he repairs 
to his home. Thoughtfully, abstractedly, he stands in 
the centre of the old domestic circle. There is the old 
patriarch, his father, at whose feet he has sat for two- 
score years; there is his aged mother, bowed under the 
weight of years, already tottering on the edge of the 
grave; there are brothers and sisters, in loving compan- 
ionship with whom his life has been spent ; there is his 
wife, tenderly beloved, and there are his own children, 
caressed and cherished. Standing in the ^centre of that 
domestic circle, and looking round, there comes to him 



MISSION MOSAICS. 21 3 

this stupendous, overwhelming question : " Will you give 
up all these and — follow Christ?" We have heard of 
sanguinary struggles, we have read of Waterloo and 
Gettysburg and of other fierce fields of earthly carnage, 
but, mark, in that man's soul a Gettysburg is being fought^ 
whose terrible fierceness no earthly conflict ever par- 
alleled. We recall the sublime faith of the patriarch, — 
the altar of rough and unhewn stones, the first-born bound 
and laid thereon, the sharp knife, gleaming at one moment 
above the patriarch's head, in the next — sheathed in the 
heart of the only son, — had not God averted the blow ! 
Behold here, however, a spectacle still more sublime. 
The altar of sacrifice, rough, jagged and frowning ; upon 
•it are laid father and mother, and brothers and sisters, and 
wife and children, and home and kindred, and a thousand 
cherished bonds and associations. There stands the con- 
victed Hindu with the knife of sacrifice gleaming in his 
hand. Help him, O God of Truth, in this hour of trial ! 
One cry for succour, one look of earnest imploration, and 
see, — the knife descends, and pierces his oivn soul to its 
tenderest core, as self-crucified, dead, he goes forth, turn- 
ing his back upon all earthly treasures and possessions, 
with his choice upon his lips in a single word, — Christ ! 
What may we expect to be the quality of such a dis- 
ciple ? And in truth, his life, his career of devoted use- 
fulness, his death of holy triumph, bear out fully these 
anticipations. Mr. A. H. Baynes refers to but a specimen 



214 MISSION MOSAICS. 

case when he says, " I shall never forget as long as I live 
that day when, in the glow of the eventide, as the sun was 
sinking and the mists were creeping over the land, I 
walked with one of our native brethren by the river side, 
and saw a light in the dim distance, when he said to me, 
' * Yonder is the only Christian in all that great town.' 
Ten years ago, he received Christ into his heart; his 
father and mother turned him out ; his friends forsook 
him ; his neighbors persecuted him, and all these years 
he has stood his ground, scarcely getting food to eat. 
During all these ten years he maintained his Christian 
character unspotted in the midst of the heathen around 
him, and the native brother said to me, ' Now his business 
is reviving, because people say he sells the best things, 
and always means what he says.' I entered his humble 
hut, and sat down upon the ground by his side, and as 
I discoursed about his loneliness and his sadness, the tears 
sprang into his eyes, and he said, ' No, I am never lonely, 
for as Christ was with the Hebrew children, and as 
He was with Daniel in the lion's den, so all these years 
has He been with me.' " 

While many hold forth the torch of a holy example in 
lowly life, others have risen to prominent and devoted 
usefulness in honorable positions, foremost among whom 
is the Christian pastor and preacher. Already does the 
force of the ordained native Christian agent exceed the 
foreign, and this force is relatively on the increase with 



MISSION MOSAICS. 21 5 

rapid strides. Among these preachers and pastors are 
persons no whit behind any body of men in vigor, devo- 
tion and usefulness. " The theological Seminary of the 
Karens has been left in charge of natives and suffered no 
loss. In the Jaffna College of Ceylon, and in the Tamil 
seats of learning, natives have been successful professors. 
In the great Conference of Christian Missionaries at 
Allahabad, Calcutta and elsewhere, Christian converts 
from various castes of Hindus and Mahomedans sat side 
by side as peers with graduates of Oxford, Cambridge, 
Yale, Princeton, Williams and Middletown Universities." 

When tried in the furnace, they exhibit the most ex- 
alted qualities of the Christian hero and martyr. I have 
known of two Panjabi itinerating preachers of singular 
devotion and zeal, brutally assaulted, knocked down and 
trampled upon while preaching. Yet when the mob 
were arrested and brought to trial, they besought their 
release with such tender earnestness, as awed and moved 
the people, and left such an impression of the truth of 
the religion they professed upon the minds of the people, 
as can never be effaced. 

Gopi Nath Nandy,apupil of Dr. Duff's and the respected 
native missionary of Futtehpore, with his wife, passed 
through the fiery ordeal of the terrible Sepoy rebellion un- 
scathed. Led before the cruel despot who then usurped 
authority in that part of India, and before whom Christian 
blood was constantly flowing, he was required summarily 



2l6 MISSION MOSAICS. 

to recant his faith or die. His wife, apart from her husband, 
was subjected to the same trial. Both proved faithful 
unto death, and, although a merciful Providence saved 
their lives, they proved their loyalty to Jesus in the 
severest ordeal which can visit the believer. 

The character of the work in its broader relations to 
the people at large, presents a view equally inspiring and 
hopeful. Reforms, social, moral and religious, of the 
highest magnitude, are among the fruit of missionary 
labor. The legislative enactments against human sacri- 
fices, infanticide, widow burning, a thousand cruelties and 
tortures practised for ages in the name of religion, are the 
offspring of evangelical activity, the fruit of the prayers 
and toils of Christian missionaries. The India of to-day 
is as unlike the India of a century ago as two totally 
different countries can be. The dark shadows of super- 
stition have lifted, and the light of the glorious gospel 
has begun to shine upon the benighted continent. No- 
where is the change so marked as in the domestic rela- 
tions of the Hindu. For ages, women have been debased, 
degraded, down trodden. Heathenism has no such word 
as Home in its dark vocabulary, no such conception in 
its unnatural economy. The light of the gospel, however, 
■is piercing into the stagnant dungeons of the Zenana, 
lighting up the darkened minds of the women, and pre- 
paring them to take their position as the sinews of a re- 
generated society. Sister, wife, mother, are beginning to 



MISSION MOSAICS. 21/ 

express a significance of meaning, never before compassed 
in the phraseology of natural kinship. The sacred bonds 
and associations of home are already founded upon the 
eternal foundations of gospel truth, and a superstructure 
of social regeneration may soon be confidently looked 
for. Thus the household, the community, the nation, 
have felt the life-thrill of the gospel, and, casting off the 
shackles of superstition and darkness, have already felt 
the first glow of the transfiguration which is at hand. 

" Watchman, what of the night ? " From the 
above review, it will be evident that the actual and ascer- 
tained results, measurable by statistical facts, as well as 
the secretly permeating, yet potent in-working of the 
mighty forces of the gospel of Christ, demonstrate to a 
certainty that the work of India's regeneration is going 
forward surely and speedily. The hand of God is upon 
the heart of the nation, stricken with disease and blighted 
with eld, — and there is healing, regeneration and uplifting 
in his touch. 

Yet, another question : — When may the day of 
India's Redemption be expected ? The answer to 
this question, and the responsibility involved in it, remains 
with the Church of God which stands at the back of the 
missionary. Let the Church be cold, spiritless and for- 
mal, heartless in prayer, feeble in faith, selfish and strait- 
ened in her gifts and offerings, and that day may be 
deferred to distant decades and generations yet unborn. 

lO 



2l8 - MISSION MOSAICS. 

But let the Sacramental Host of God awake to its respon- 
sibility, and grasping the horns of the altar with holy 
earnestness and unwavering faith, lay itself, with its tal- 
ents and treasures, upon the altar of sacrifice, determined 
to do its whole duty, and — who shall dare to say, that 
the day of final emancipation and glorious liberty for the 
nations that now sit in darkness, need be deferred a gen- 
eration hence ? 

A tremendous responsibility descends upon the pray- 
ing, professing Host of God. For the past centuries, 
the Church has been waiting upon its Great Head for the 
quickening of the world, praying upon bended knee and 
with uplifted hands, — " Thy Kingdom come." How, if 
it should appear in the great day of account, that, while 
the Church was waiting upon God for the redemption of 
the world, God was waiting upon His Church, with 
the tender pleading of old — '' Bring ye all the tithes into 
the store-house that there may be meat in mine house, 
and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I 
will not open the windows of heaven, and pour you out 
a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive 
it." (Mai. iii. lo.) Is this not the very blessing we want, 
— a Pentecostal effusion, an overflow of Divine plenitude 
and power that shall overrun the nations and bring in a 
reign of righteousness and peace ? 

What is the solemn demand upon the Church by the 
Great Head, in view of this stupendous emergency ? A 



MISSION MOSAICS. 2I9 

practical consecration and a mighty faith! There are 
men and women to-day, in the rear ranks of the Church 
who ought to be laboring for God and lost souls in the 
van of the missionary force. The Lord has spoken to 
them, the Holy Ghost has planted a seal upon their brow 
and unfolded a commission before their eyes, but alas ! 
they have not obeyed. In the great Sepoy rebellion of 
1857, the focus of mutiny naturally centred at Delhi, the 
seat of the old Mogal Kings. It became the key of the 
whole rebellion ; all eyes were turned towards that capital 
of crime. Delhi must be taken at all costs, and that 
speedily. The conflagration raged on every side, but 
here was the vital point. At last Delhi is invested; and 
shot and shell play fiercely upon the doomed city. In a 
week the breaches are practicable, and the terrible assault 
is ordered. On that day, the post of honor and of dan- 
ger is assigned to General Nicholson, who is to blow up 
the Cashmere gate and storm with sword and bayonet, 
the most deadly quarter of the city. He goes forth 
gallantly to his allotted duty. The gate is reached with a 
loud huzza, amid a blinding storm of bullets. " Who shall 
lay the train to storm that gate of brass ?" He is certain 
to be destroyed, but volunteers rush to the front in an 
instant. One man is chosen, but no sooner does he move 
forward, than he is shot down. Another and another gal- 
lantly take the hero's place and meet with the hero's death. 
At last the fearful charge is laid, and all is ready. " Who 



220 MISSION MOSAICS. 

shall fire the train ?" See, they are ready by scores to 
leap into the jaws of death, and the list of heroes swells 
grimly before the work is done. But it is done, and then, 
through bursting gates and tottering walls, and blinding 
smoke and hurtling bullets, and a pandemonium of dia- 
bolical yells and shrieks, the victorious host cleave their 
way and Delhi is stormed, though the brave Nicholson 
falls to rise no more. 

If Delhi represent the world of heathenism, then is 
India the Cashmere gate of the grim fortress. In 
this storming of the very key and citadel of heathen- 
ism, shall the great Captain call for volunteers, and none 
respond ? Shall it be said in the courts of heaven, in 
the dungeons of hell, that Jesus led the van of the mighty 
assault, but when the gate was reached, there was none 
to lay the charge, to fire the train, at his behest? The 
cry along the line of God's anointed host is for volun- 
teers, who will go forth to dare, to do, and if needs be to 
die, for the redemption of the world. Consecration, in 
a word, of body, soul and spirit, — of the whole living 
being,— for the service of this holy sacrifice upon the 
altar of a world's regeneration. 

Consecration, moreover, of substance and possession ; 
of the Church's temporal treasure in a sense and meas- 
ure unknown since the days of the first Pentecost. The 
Church needs her first lesson over again in the great 
work of holy beneficence. This whole phraseology, with 



MISSION MOSAICS. 221 

the idea which it covers, of " sparing " so much for the 
Lord's cause is miserably attenuated, bedwarfed and 
anti-scriptural. It is what you shall sacrifice, not what 
you can spare, which the Lord accepts. His eye is not 
upon what you offer, but upon what remains after the 
offering is made ; and many claim to give the widow's 
mite, who have no right to the sacred title, for " she of 
her want did cast in all that she had, even all her 
ivmg. 

The fact is, we want more alabaster boxes broken, and 
the precious ointment poured out, in holy recklessness, 
at the feet of Jesus. Mary surveys the beautiful box as 
she prepares to go to her Lord, and One hisses in her 
ear, " Why, Mary, you cannot take that to Jesus ; It is the 
most precious thing you have got." One look of hesita- 
tion, and then I see Mary tower up to the full height of 
loving consecration, as she resolutely takes the box, say- 
ing — " Yes, it is the most precious thing I have, and 
THEREFORE it shall be given to Jesus." 

And now she approaches her Lord, and thoughts deep 
and unutterable fill her soul, and so, unheeding the 
beauty of the box and the cost of the ointment, — absorbed 
indeed with but one passion, — she shatters the box and 
pours the ointment upon his feet. Is it any wonder that 
the Lord pronounced upon her the warmest encomium 
that ever fell from his lips — " She hath done what she 
could ; " while angels picked up the fragments of that 



222 ^ MISSION MOSAICS. 

broken alabaster box to teach the Church her duty of 
consecration. " The room was filled with the odour of 
the ointment; " — the Christian world has been filled with 
the odour of that grateful sacrifice, and its precious aroma 
is with us to-day. 

Yes, consecration of ourselves and our substance, — the 
best of our powers and our possessions for God ! The 
breaking of beautiful alabaster boxes, at present laid 
away for selfish uses, opened now and then with trem- 
bling hand and a few drops of the precious ointment 
poured out at the feet of Jesus, with a timid fearfulness 
lest we exceed the limits of a judicious moderation. 
Away with the cold calculation of a Judas ; let the Church 
emulate the holy consecration of Mary. Then shall 
prayer gather strength, and faith take wings, and hope 
receive an inspiration, until the chariot wheels of salva- 
tion, no longer dragging through the mire heavily, shall 
speed upon their way, freighted with rich benediction upon 
the nations of the earth ; until the dawning in the East 
shall brighten, and the Sun of Righteousness, appearing 
above the horizon, shall ascend to the meridian in glory 
and strength, while all the peoples of the earth shall 
rejoice in His light; until this globe, so long belted 
with blackness, shall be girded with glory, and South 
shall join hands with North, and East with West in a 
doxology of universal praise ; until the sad imploration 
of the Church for weary centuries past, '' Thy Kingdom 



MISSION MOSAICS. 223 

come," shall be transformed into the joyful anthem, 
*' The Kingdoms of this world have become the King- 
doms of Our Lord and of His Christ;" until the Lord 
Himself, once delivered for our offences and wounded 
for our transgressions, shall be enthroned; and, with 
Praise for a diadem and Power for a sceptre, shall reign 
supremely and forever ; — 

" Until this land, so dear, so soiTowed o'er. 
With all its load of niiseiy and sin, 
After long ages of transgression, turn. 
And pierced in heart with love the shaft of Kings, 
Fall down and bathe His blessed feet with tears ; 
Then rise, and to the listening world tell out 
Her deep repentance and her new- found joy! 
* 45^ ^ * -sfr -x- * 

O day of days ! far off its coming shone 
The hope of ages past ; O joy of joy, 
To see it come at length ! O double joy, ^ 

If we have watched and wept and toiled and prayed, 
'Mid the deep darkness of the night of tears. 
To speed the advent of that morn of joy, 
"Whose sun, once risen, shall never more go down 
While the Lord God Omnipotent doth reign. 
And the great ages roll, in golden calm. 
Through the high Sabbath of Eternity." * 

* By Dr. Mun-ay Mitchell ; read at the Decennial Missionary Conference, 
at Calcutta, 1882. 



THE END. 



